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I 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY 



OTHER ESSAYS. 




NEW YORK: 

WILLIAM GOWAN"S 



1860. 



ISAAC TAYLOR. 

n 



WITH A SKETCH OF THE LIFE OF THE AUTHOR 

AND A ^ I 

CATALOGUE OF HIS WRITINGS. / 






,^' 



XU £l2LCtLailg9 
Drew Theolog. Sem, 
22 iai 90r 



CONTENTS. 



PAOB 

ESSAY I. 
Logic in Theology, t 

ESSAY ir. 
The State of Unitariaxism in England, .... 71 

ESSAY in. 

XiLUS: — The Cliristian Courtier in the Desert, .... 114 

ESSAY lY. 
Paula :— High Quality and Asceticism in the Fourth Century, 153 

ESSAY V. 
Theodosius: — Pagan Usages, and the Christian Magistrate, . 170 

ESSAY YI. 
Julian : — Prohibitive Education, 199 

ESSAY VII. 
""Without Controversy," 223 

suppleilentary to the flfth p]ssay, 291 

Biographical Sketch, 295 

Catalogue of the Author's "Writings, .... 299 



The reader is informed that a great i)art of tlie Fikst 
Essay in this volume appeared as an Introductory 
Essay to "Edwards on Free Will." The Second 
Essay, which first appeared in the Eclectic Heview, 
October 1830, was reprinted at Manchester soon 
afterwards. 

The other Essays — the Third, Foueth, Fifth, Sixth, 
and Seventh — have not before appeared in print. 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY, 



OTHER ESSAYS, 



ESSAY I 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 



Modern physical science lias had its commencement, 
and has attained its present firm condition within a 
period of three hundred years. The philosophy which 
it has displaced had held undisputed sway during more 
than eighteen hundred years. In comparing the recent 
witli the ancient scheme of natural science the contrast 
is not greater in regard to the contents, or the ascer- 
tained results of the one system, than in regard to those 
principles of reasoning and those methods of proof 
which have heen admitted in each. 

Throughout that long anterior period of imagined 
intellectual liberty, but of real bondage, the masters of 
]»hilosophy believed, and they taught, that the human 
mind possesses, or may attain to, a sovereign compre- 
hension of all things, real and possible, so that it may 
Avork out for itself a scheme of the world, material and 
immaterial, derived from its own conceptions; a scheme 



ESSAY I 

such that it shall furnish a true explication of all pheno- 
mena of the actual world. 

This prodigious illusion — such we now think it — was 
already passing off from the mind of Europe, as a dark 
cloud, at the moment when Bacon, in formal terms, 
challenged it as a folly, and the parent of error. Since 
that time realities, one by one, have been coming into 
their due position in the room of dreams. This, with 
an allowance made for exceptional instances, may be 
affirmed concerning the physical sciences of this modern 
period. 

In turning toward those regions of thought where 
we cease to be concerned with things palpable, visible, 
measurable, ponderable, a corresponding affirmation 
cannot be advanced, apart from exceptive statements, 
so large, that we may well doubt whether the affirma- 
tive side and the exceptive should not change places ; 
or whether, in the regions of non-material philosophy, 
what we may affirm with truth is only this — that in these 
fields the antiquated Logic still holds its sway — a due 
allowance being made for instances in which juster 
modes of thinking have gained ground. 

In proportion as the human mind is compelled to feel 
its dependence upon its instrument, namely — language, 
it is led, almost irresistibly, to exjject far more aid from 
the logical collocation of words and propositions than 
these implements of thought can ever yield. Language, 
logically compacted in propositions, avails to give us the 
best possible command of the knowledge which we 
actually possess ; but it has no power to increase that 
stock, even by a particle. 

Nevertheless the advantages derivable from a well- 
compacted and a well-commanded stock of knowledge 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 9 

arc so great — they are so inestimable — that it becomes 
ditfieult to avoid attributing to our logical methods an 
efficacy which does not belong to them. We believe 
ourselves to have acquired knowledge, when, in fact, we 
have done nothing more than bring our materials into 
available order. In truth, it maybe granted that order 
is a positive gain in respect of materials of which we 
are likely to make no use while they lie scattered before 
us in confusion. 

The imagined efficiency of logical methods for aug- 
menting our stock of knowledge — for bringing us to 
know what otiierwise we should not know — is still 
affirmed, and is trusted to, in the department of intellec- 
tual ])hilosophy ; nor can it be said that those vast 
advances of physical science, which have resulted from 
the adoption of a wholly diiferent principle, have much 
availed to bring about a corresponding improvement on 
this side ; for it conthiues to be believed that, by carrying 
the highest abstractions a step or two further than they 
have hitherto gone, the human mind may come to solve 
the problems of existence, and may master the mysteries 
of its own being. 

In the region of religious speculation, or of abstract 
theology, various influences combine to strengthen this 
same confidence in the potency of formal methods of 
reasoning for the attainment of knowledge. Concerning 
these influences it is not proposed in these pages to 
make any inquiiy ; nor to ask v.diat may have been 
their operation in distorting or disturbing the principles 
of a purely biblical theology. Instead of attempting a 
task so difficult, and of such wide range as this, we take 
up a single instancL' in which logical methods which are 
affirmed to be strictly demonstrative, and irresistibly 

1* 



10 ESSAY I. 

conclusive, have been applied to a class of subjects in 
relation to which we are far from being dependent upon 
language, or upon Logic, and where genuine knowledge, 
as to its sources, and its materials, is within our reach- — 
subjects which belong much rather to physics than to 
metaphysics. 

An inquiry — properly physical — concerning the con- 
stitution of human nature, has come to be considered 
by theologians as their own, in consequence of its con- 
nection with the principles of the moral and religious 
life. Theology — that is to say, a mixed product of 
abstract speculation and of biblical teaching — has inter- 
woven itself, has entangled itself, with what appertains 
to the philosophy of human nature. A disentanglement 
of the tw^o is what may well be aimed at, as desirable. 

SECTION I. 

In modern times no instance of the misapplication of 
mere logic to the solution of a physical problem has been 
more signal, or has had so wide and lasting an influence 
as that of the "Inquiry into the Modern Prevailing 
Notions respecting the Freedom of Will." Jonathan 
Edwards has held his ground as a master in morals and 
theology, almost unquestioned, from his own times to 
these. 

Should we think, then, to dislodge him from his posi- 
tion? We are fir from wishing to attempt it. But 
■what may be done is this — to accept, and to leave to its 
merits, the alleged demonstration of an abstruse dogma, 
and to set it off as a matter altogether indifferent to 
Christian belief, as it confessedly is so to the conduct of 
common life. 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 11 

Pliilosopliical writings are allowed to eoiiiniaiul a more 
grave attention, and to challenge a higher rank in litera- 
ture than is accorded to works of imagination ; but then 
it is tlieir fate more often to fall into oblivion ; or even 
if remembered and preserved, yet to be superseded, and 
to forfeit the honours they once enjoyed as canons of 
science. The reason of this difference is obvious ; for in 
the one class of compositions an end is proposed, namely, 
to give pleasure to the reader — which may be attained 
in a thousand ways, and in the pursuit of which genius 
ensures its own success. But in the other class, where 
tlie discovery of truth is the single object, success 
depends, not merely upon the ability of the writer, but 
upon the good fortune also which leads him to choose 
the one right track, amid innumerable devious paths. 

Works of science lose their credit, as such, either in 
consequence of the refutation and entire rejection of the 
principles they maintain ; or they are gradually super- 
seded, in the course of improvement, by better digested 
systems, founded on the same general doctrines. In in- 
stances of this latter sort the discoverers of certain great 
truths which have become the property of the intellectual 
commonwealth, though they still hold their titles of 
honour, are more often spoken of than read ; or they are 
read only by the few who make the history of science 
their peculiar study. 

Whatever may in the next age be the fate of the "In- 
quiry concerning Freedom of Will," it may safely be 
predicted tliat, at least as an instance of exact analysis, 
of penetrative abstraction, and of philosophic calmness, 
this celebrated essay will long support its reputation, 
and it may continue to be used as a classic in the business 
of intellectual education. If literary ambition had been, 



12 ESSAY I 

which certainly it was not, the active motive of the 
author's mind, and if he could have foreseen the reputa- 
tion of his "Essay on Free Will," he need have envied 
few aspiiants to philoso23hic fame. Wliat higher praise 
could a scientific writer wish for than that of having, by 
a single dissertation, reduced a numerous, a learned, and 
a then powerful paity, in his own and other countries 
(and from his own day to the present time) to the neces- 
sity of making almost a silent protest against the argu- 
ment and inference of the book as unanswerable ; and 
yet leaving them immoveably attached to their previous 
opinion. And then, if we turn from theology to science, 
from divines to philosophers, we see the modest pastor 
of the Calvinists of Northampton assigned to a seat of 
honour among sages, and allowed (if only he wall forget 
his faith and his Bible) to speak and to utter decisions 
as a master in the schools. 

It might indeed have been well if this devout man 
could have foreseen the consequences that have actually 
resulted from the mode in which he conducted his argu- 
ment; for in that case he would not have allow^ed those 
who reject the Christian system to triumph, by his aid, 
over faith, as well as reason. He would, instead of aban- 
doning the ground of abstract reasoning as soon as he 
had achieved the overthrow of the logical error of his 
opponents, have laboured so to establish the responsibility 
of man as should have compelled unbelievers, either not 
to avail themselves at all of his proof of universal causa- 
tion, or to yield to his proof of the reality of religion. 

The constitutional diffidence, and the Christian humi- 
lity, and the retired habits of the American divine, forbad 
his entertaining the thought that he might be hstened to 
by philosophers as well as by his brethren — the ministers 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 13 

of religion. Supposing luniselt' to be writing only for 
those who acknowledged, as cordially as he did, the 
authority of Holy Scripture, he did not scruple to make 
up his chain of reasoning, inditferently, of abstractions and 
of texts. Especially in the latter portion of his treatise, 
he readily took the short scriptural road to a conclusion, 
Avhich must have been circuitously reached in any other 
way. Just as these conclusions may be, they commanded 
no respect beyond the limits of the Christian community; 
nay, they excited the scorn of those who naturally said 
— If these principles of piety could have been established 
by abstract argument, a thinker so profound as Edwards, 
and so fond of this method, would not have gone about 
to prove them by the Bible. 

Deistical and Atheistical writers, availing themselves 
eagerly of the abstract jiortions of the "Inquiry,'' and 
contemning its biblical conclusions, carried on the un- 
finished reasoning in their own manner; and when they 
had completed their work, turned to the faithful, and said 
— Quarrel not with our labours, for the foundations were 
laid by one of yourselves ! 

Xotwithstandhig this accidental result of the argument 
for moral causation, as conducted by Edwards, this trea- 
tise must be allowed to have achieved an important 
service for Christianity, inasmuch as it has stood like a 
bulwark in front of principles which, whether or not they 
may hitherto have been stated in the happiest manner, 
are of far deeper meaning than is any sectarian scheme 
of doctrine, and apart from which, or if they were dis- 
owned, the Christian community would not long make 
good its opposition to infidelity. If Calvinism, using the 
term in its modern sense, were exploded, a long time 
would not elapse before evangelical doctrine of every sort 



14 ESSAY I. 

would find itself driven into tlie gulf that had yawned 
to receive its rival. 

Whatever notions of an exaggerated sort may belong 
to some Calvinists, Calvinism encircles or involves great 
truths, which, whether defended in scriptural simplicity 
of language or not, will never be abandoned while the 
Bible continues to be devoutly read ; and which, if they 
might indeed be driven out of sight, would drag to the 
same ruin every doctrine of revealed religion. As muchjB 
as this might be affirmed and made good; although he^ 
who should undertake to say it were so to conduct his 



as might make six Calvinists in seven his 
enemies. 

Yet few would affirm that the treatise on the Will is 
itself complete, or that it is not open to reasonable objec- 
tion on the part of those who refuse to admit its conclu- 
sions, or that it leaves nothing to be desired in this 
department of theological science. Edwards achieved 
his immediate object — that of demolishing the Arminian 
notion of contingency, as the blind law of human voli- 
tions; and he did more than this, for he effectively re- 
deemed the doctrines called Calvinistic from that scorn 
with which the irreligious party, within and without 
the pale of Christianity, had been used to treat them ; 
and there is reason also to surmise that, in the reaction 
which has counterpoised the once triumphant Arminian- 
ism of English divinity, the influence of Edwards has 
been greater than those who have yielded to it have 
always confessed. 

But if the " Inquiry on Freedom of Will " is to be 
regarded as a scientific treatise, then we must protest 
against that mixture of metaphysical demonstrations and 
scriptural evidence which runs through it, breaking up 



I 



I 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 

tlio chain of arj^umontation, and disparaging the author- 
ity of the Bible, by making it part and parcel with dis- 
putable abstractions. 

But besides the improper mixture of abstract reason- 
ing with scrii)ture proof, the reader of Edwards will de- 
tect a confusion of another sort — less palpable indeed, 
l)ut of not less fatal consequence — as to the consistency 
of a philoso})hical argument — a confusion which holds 
intellectual philosophy far in the rear of the i)hysical 
sciences. This error is that of mingling what is purely 
abstract with facts belonging to the physiology of the 
liuman mind. Even the reader who is little familiar with 
abstruse science will often be conscious of a vague dis- 
satisflietion, or latent suspicion, that some fallacy has 
passed into the train of reasoning, although the linking 
of propositions seems perfect. This suspicion increases 
in strength as he proceeds, and at length condenses 
itself into the form of a protest against certain conclu- 
sions, notwithstanding their apparently necessary con- 
nection with the premises. 

The condition of purely abstract truths is, that they 
might be expressed by algebraic or other arbitrary signs, 
and in that form made to pass through the process of 
syllogistic reasoning ; certain conclusions being attained 
which must be assented to independently of any refer- 
ence to the actual constitution of human nature, or to 
that of other sentient beings. Abstractions of this order 
stand parallel with the truths of pure mathematics ; and 
it may be said of both that the human mind compre- 
hends their properties and relations, and feels that the 
materials of its cogitation lie within its grasj^, and need 
not be gathered from observation-. 

Not so as to our reasonings when the actual constitu- 



16 ESSAY I. 

tion of either the mateiiMl world, or of the mental, is the 
subject of inquiry. When an argument relates to the 
agency and moral condition of man, nothing should be 
taken for granted, or allowed to flow in the stream of 
logical demonstration, which at best is questionable, or 
which, whether true or false, should be stated as simple 
matter of fact, and by no means confounded with those 
unchangeable truths which would be what they are, 
though no such being as man existed. 

But owing to the abstruse nature of the subject, and 
to its not being susceptible of palpable proof, problems 
belonging to the science of mind have commonly been 
attempted to be solved on this principle of confounding 
the abstract with the physical. 

In the case of our availing ourselves of the reasoning 
of a writer like Edwards, it behoves us to take heed 
that we do justice at once to him and to ourselves; to 
him, by not imputing to him, individually^ a blame 
which belongs in common to metaphysico-theological 
wn-iters of every age — and to ourselves, by yielding our 
assent to his argument only so far as it is purely of an 
abstract kind, and holding ourselves aloof from conclu- 
sions which involve physiological facts which either 
were not considered by the author, or perhaps were not 
known to him. 

Of what sort, we may ask, is the inquiry concerning 
human agency, free will, liberty, and necessity ? In other 
words, to what department of science does the contro- 
Torsy b'elong, and on what ground is it to be argued ? 
And further, it may be asked, at what points does the 
subject touch the constitution and the movements of the 
human system, individual and social ? or in what sense 
is it 2i practical question ? 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 17 

Unless, for the sake of an inference (soon to be men- 
tioned) it might well be deemed nn necessary to assume, 
as at all a reasonable sui)position, that the ordinary in- 
terests of life are liable to interference from abstruse 
problems of any kind — such, for instance, as are pro- 
pounded in the controversy concerning liberty and 
necessity. There have indeed been seasons during 
wliich an interference of this sort was imagined to be 
proper; and it may also have found moie indulgence 
than was due to it within the circle of German philoso- 
phy ; but at present the force of common sense is too 
great, and the credit of abstract speculation is too small, 
to allow room for questions of this order. Or, even if 
it were otherwise, the supposition of a practical con- 
sequence belonging to the problem of moral causation 
would stand discharged by the leave of even the most 
resolute impugners of common sense, who, not only in 
their personal conduct, but by explicit admissions, ex- 
cuse themselves and others from paying any more respect 
to such speculations than what is thought due to the 
paradoxes of those who abound in learning and leisure. 
" When the Pyrrhonian," says Hume, " awakes from 
liis dream, he will be the first to join in the laugh against 
himself, and to confess that all his objections are mere 
amusement, and can have no other tendency than to 
show the whimsical condition of mankind, who must 
act, and reason, and believe ; though they are not able, 
by their roost diligent inquiry, to satisfy themselves 
concerning the foundation of these operations, or to 
remove the objections that may be raised against them." 

Yet let us for a moment admit the supposition that 
doctrines such as those of the Pyrrhonist have a claim 
to be listened to before men ca'.i, with reason or consist- 



18 ESSAT I. 

ency, either proceed to transact the business of life or 
accept as certain any system of belief, religious or 
philosophical. 

Let it be allowed, then, that the unsolved problem 
concerning the alleged liberty of the human mind, and 
its exemption from the stern conditions of physical 
causation, does affect, or ought to affect, not only our 
religious opinions, but also our notions, feelings, judg- 
ments, and conduct in everyday life. 

That we may give every advantage to this supposition, 
and may exempt it from entanglement with those recent 
theories of human nature whicli Christian men must 
reject, we consent to take our doctrine of moral causa- 
tion from the " Inquiry concerning Freedom of Will." 

Let it be granted that Edwards is quite successful 
in those sections of his essay in which he labours to 
prove that the doctrine of necessity, as held by him, 
perfectly consists with all true notions of virtue and of 
human accountability; nay, that there neither is, nor 
can be, any virtue in the universe which is not founded 
upon this moral necessity, as set forth by this Christian 
philosopher. Consequently, the prejudice against this 
doctrine, as if it might favour fatalism, and so were of 
dangerous tendency in morals, is unfounded. 

This allowed on the side of Edwards and his argu- 
ment, then we must ask leave to advance a step on the 
other side, as thus : — We are supposing the case, not of 
an acute and accomplished logical reader, but of an 
intelHgent and fairly-educated man, competent to under- 
stand whatever in our best waiters is indeed intelligible, 
and who reads what he reads for his personal improve- 
ment, and not as if he were about to pass an examination 
upon it in his college. This is just the case of nineteen 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 19 



out of twenty, or of ninety-nine out of a hundred, of 
those who read such woiks as Butler's Analogy, or 
Hume's Essays, or Jonatlian Edwards on Free Will. 

Xow, sueh a reader of tliat essay as Ave have described, 
is likely to reach its last page with a mixed feeling, which 
he might thus express : — I cannot deny that this acute 
reasoner carries liis point ; he is, he must be riglit ; for 
where can I find a break or a weak pLice in his chain of 
reasoning? I may then dismiss any misgivings that 
liave haunted me in the perusal of the essay, and resolve 
to take to myself the author's doctrine of moral causa- 
tion, as being a sure inference from admitted axioms. 

But of what sort are those misgivings which we 
imagine to have haunted the mind of an intelligent 
reader of Edwards' Essay? They are, we think, such 
as these. He feels that this finnly-jointed chain of 
demonstrative reasoning is Logic, but is not fact ; and 
that, Avhereas what the argument professes to have to 
do with is — human nature — that is to say, the actual 
constitution of a being who thinks, feels, and acts in 
conformity with the laws of his structure, intellectual 
and moral — the strength and force of the author's 
reasoning consist in the due dependence and the artifi- 
cial sequence of propositions, that is to say, of collocated 
words and phrases, beneath which (he matter of fact is 
tacitly assumed, or is concealed and put out of sight. 
This irrefragable argument resembles, in its mode of 
reaching a conclusion, those ingenious paradoxes in 
which things the most absurd are made to appear 
incontestably certain. 

Unexpressed misgivings such as these, which we 
suppose to trouble an intelligent reader of the Essay on 
Free Will, might wear themselves away after a time, 



20 ESSAY I. 

and leave him at ease as to the soundness of the author's 
argument ; but in the course of his discursive studies 
he is startled by the discovery that Jonathan Edwards, 
the Christian theologian and the devout Calviuistic. 
teacher, has been hailed as a master in philosophy, and 
a powerful coadjutor by the chiefs and apostles of 
modern unbelief, and even of atheism. As he follows 
the course of thought in England, America, France, 
Germany, during the last hundred years, he finds this 
Christian Avriter traA^elling in company with the latest 
of the modern champions of materialistic pantheism, 
. upon the same road ! 

At this point his first vague misgivings are supplanted 
by deep-felt apprehensions or alarms ; and, if he be a 
Christian man, he doubts whereunto he shall be led 
while yielding himself to the guidance of a logician 
whose demonstrations, though irresistible, are welcomed 
by the preachers of impiety. There must then be a 
fallacy somewhere in this chain of reasoning ; but he 
will believe it to occur lower down in the chain than 
where Jonathan Edwards concludes his argument. 
With some such undefined and saving belief as this 
the intelligent Christian reader resolves to make himself 
contented. Pantheists, materialists, atheists, in availing 
themselves of the hard logic of this Christian writer, 
have no doubt committed a robbery, or they have 
inserted a fallacy of their own, and have drawn from it 
a mischievous inference which he would have abhorred. 

In this manner such disquieting thoughts may be put 
to rest ; but a consequence ensues which is not of the 
less ill influence because it creeps upon all minds, 
silently and unperceived. What is it, then, that, in such 
cases, takes place in the minds of intelligent and fairly- 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 21 



educated persons — the mass of an instructed Cliristian 
coinniunity ? We shall attempt to give some answer 
to tliis question ; and let it be understood that, through- 
out this argument, we quite exclude whatever nuiy 
attach to the narrow prejudices or the misconceptions 
of tlie uneducated — religious or ineligious. We liave 
in view the taught, tlie reflective, the riglitly-minded, 
amonir our Christian communities. 



SECTION IT. 

Everything within him — his intellectual and his moral 
consciousness entire — contradicts, to a man of sound 
raind, the paradoxes of fatalism. When he is told that 
causation is all of one kind, that there are in the universe 
no causes but i)hysical causes, that there is no meaning 
in the word Liberty, that the distinction between virtue 
and vice is an illusion or a prejudice, and that it is 
absurd either to praise or to blame the actions of men ; 
• — when doctrine like this is advanced, it meets its 
merited contemptuous disregard, or abhorrence, from 
every mind that is not incurably sophisticated or de- 
bauched. 

All things contradict monstrous paradoxes of this 
order ; — the instincts of reason and of the moral sense, 
the very structure of the social system, the procedures 
of law and political society, all proclaim and affirm a 
contrary doctrine. The man who in his closet may for 
an hour have lost his grasp of common sense, while lie 
has listened to soj)]iistries of this kind, recovers his 
position, and regains his hold of reason the moment 
when he t^ikes his place anew in the domestic circle ; or 



22 ESSAY I. 

if tliis means of intellectual restoration were not enough, 
his recovery will be secured by his return to the busi- 
ness and the responsibilities of the external world. 

All may now seem to be set right ; — and so it would 
be if we always dealt equitably with our feelings and 
states of mind at different times ; but it is not so : a doubt 
or a distrust which, if valid at all, must take effect alike 
upon two or more objects, or interests, or persons, is 
perhaps thoroughly cleared up and discharged from our 
thoughts in its bearing upon one of them ; but it is left, 
as we may say, to hover over or to beset another of them. 
This should not be; but among the incoherences that 
attach to our human nature this is one. We do not 
always make thorough work in putting our o^Yn minds 
in order : perhaps very seldom do so. 

It is certain that whatever we affirm to be the consti- 
tution of man, as to his volitions, whatever may be the 
conditions of that liberty which he believes to be his 
prerogative, it is the same in all its applications. Man is 
free, or he is the passive creature of physical causation 
in all things alike. He is not free in one sphere, or one 
department of his daily life, and necessitated in another 
department ; he is not blameworthy and praiseworthy 
and responsible six days of his life, and not so one day in 
every seven ; he is not rcwardable and punishable on the 
exchange or in the market, but not so at church. He 
must consent to be dealt wdth, and he must deal with 
himself, at all times, and on all occasions, on one and the 
same principle. Whatever sense w^e attach to the ab- 
stract terms Liberty and Necessity, this same sense must 
be adhered to — Sunday and Monday. 

But now, if we are accustomed to give strict attention 
to our states of mind, or feelings, at different times or on 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 23 

difTerent occasions, avo sliall be compelled to admit that 
something far short of this even-handed dealing with our- 
selves is often allowed to have its course. A mau who 
would think himself insulted if, on the broad ways of 
common life, he were accused of adopting the principle 
of fatalism or ])hysical causation, as professed by the 
atheistic materialist, goes home to his study, spends his 
hour of listless musing with some writers of this class, 
and yields himself, in respect of his abstract moral and 
religious belief, to this very principle. He is a convert 
in his closet to a doctrine which, if imputed to him out of 
doors by another, would imply that he is fool or knave. 

What ensues, then, is this : — ^Thoughtful men fall into 
the usage of supposing that human nature stands related 
to two worlds — the world of common life, and the world 
of moral and religious feeling — on two dilFerent and con- 
tradictory principles, or according to two independent 
and discordant systems of law. Under one of these sys- 
tems he entertains a lively and efficacious sense of respon- 
sibility and duty. God forbid that he should fail in any 
of its requirements! But under the other of these sys- 
tems his convictions have become confused and vague, 
his notion of responsibility has entangled itself with 
ambiguous abstractions, his sense of duty has lost its 
vivacity, the moral feeling has suffered paralysis : in a 
word, so far as his morality connects itself Avith his reli- 
gious belief, he is a feeble creature, an invalid. 

If then we are required to say what we mean in depre- 
cating the intrusion of Logic upon the ground of Theo- 
logy, this is our meaning : — We deprecate the trusting 
ourselves to the certainty of wordy demonstrations in 
instances in which these methods of argument, while 
they avail noticing for the discovery of truth, give encou- 



24 ESSAY I. 

ragement to that besetting illusion which impels us to ' 
divorce morals and piety from their due companionship 
with the motives and energies of common life. It is this 
parting off of the one from the other which so much per- 
plexes the Christian moralist, who finds it often a task 
beyond his ability to give vividness and reality to the 
feelings of men when he would awaken in them the sense 
of obligation in matters of religion. 

Just in proportion as fatalism, under any of its phases 
and disguises, is shown and felt to be untrue in human 
nature, so much the greater reaction will have place upon 
morals and piety, so long as, upon this undefined ground, 
it keeps its position at all. This fiict should be well un- 
derstood, for the contrary might seem the more probable 
consequence: it might be conjectured that, when a 
healthy and vigorous mind disabuses itself, as by a con- 
vulsive effort, of the paradoxes of fatalism, as related to 
common life, it would dismiss them altogether from its 
consciousness, and resolve to be ensnared no more in the 
same manner. This, however, is not always, nor perhaps 
often, what takes place. 

It is common to human nature (we need not here stay 
to inquire why) to throw itself off from the familiar 
ground of proximate and intelligible causes, and to seek 
such as are abstruse, difficult, and ultimate, whenever it 
is agitated by undefined and powerful emotions. We 
have in this fact one of the sources of superstition ; and 
as it is in a sense true that fear is the mother of the gods, 
so, in a sense, it is also true that anxiety, despondency, 
and the impatience of pain and sorrow, are teachers of 
metaphysics. It may be doubted whether certain pro- 
found speculations would at all have suggested themselves 
to the human mind, if life had been a course of equable 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 25 

prosjierity. It may be questioned whether the inhabit- 
ants of worlds unvisited by evil — how large soever their 
intelligence may be — have ever thought of asking, What 
is virtue ? or, What is the liberty of a moral agent ? 

Tlie conflicts of hope and fear in the heart, and the 
assaults that are made upon hope by the scepticism or 
tlie mockery of those around us, impel us naturally, yet 
unwisely, to throw up the good and proj^er evidence 
which, though it be simple, and intelligible, and sufficient, 
does not open to the mind a depth profound enough to 
give room for the mighty tossings of the soul in its hour 
of distress : — The only testimony or proof that is strictly 
applicable to the point in question is thoughtlessly re- 
jected ; and in an evil moment we transgress the limits 
of safety and of comfort, and pass from the (joutfixa to the 
f/eTaqrurfixa. When this unhappy mistake has been com- 
mitted, two courses offer themselves ; — the one is to beat 
up and down through the regions of night whereupon 
we have entered, until we find, or fancy that we have 
found, solid footing, and discern a glimmering of light: 
— the other course is, by a buoyant effort of good sense, 
to spring up at once from the abyss, and effect our return 
to the trodden and familiar surface of thinfrs. 

The process is a frequent and familiar one, which 
loads the mind to reason on important occasions in a 
manner which it shuns as absurd in parallel instances of 
a trivial sort. The man who loses his footing in the 
street, and besmears a now suit with mud, makes miith 
of the simple accident. But if, when he is on his way 
to accomplish some momentous purpose — to make a for- 
tune or to rescue one — he falls and breaks a limb, and, 
as the consequence, irretrievably forfeits the only aus- 
picious moment of his life, ho then looks at ihc phUoso- 



26 ESSAY I. 

phy of the mishap ; and, as he lies on his couch, medi- 
tates and reasons concerning Fate and Providence until 
he has bewildered his best convictions, and, in the 
gloominess of his sorrow, has persuaded himself that 
there is no heavenly superintendence of human affairs 
— that chance is mistress of the world ; and at length 
he concludes that forethought, prudence, and activity, 
not less than faith and piety, are a specious folly. Per- 
haps he resolves henceforward to pursue nothing beyond 
the sensualities of the hour. Nevertheless, this same 
man, whom calamity has thus taught to be a meta- 
physician, adheres still, on all trivial occasions, to the 
maxims of vulgar good sense ; his philosophical princi- 
ples he takes up and lays down, according to the magni- 
tude or the insignificance of the business in hand, and is 
not consistently sage or simple through the course of a 
single hour. He would deem it a folly to attempt to 
avoid the destined track of a bullet that is whizzing 
through the air ; and yet he flinches from a splash of 
dirt ! But should he not remember that the very same 
awfiil fate that rules the flight of leaden bullets, presides, 
not less arbitrarily, over the whirling of straws, the 
drifting of dust, and the projectile curves of mud? 

Fatalism, in any of its forms, has, we suppose, been 
driven off from the road-ways of common life, and has 
been rebutted in its attempt to interfere with the ener- 
gies of the day ; nevertheless it has not been logically 
refuted: it holds its ground as a theory of the universe. 
Logical philosophers, and along with them logical theo- 
logians, affirm that hitherto they have not been over- 
thrown in argument ; — the vulgar turn away from their 
teaching ; but all who think assent to their doctrine. 

What happens, then, is this— that intelligent and 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 27 

reli<»:iously-inin(UHl men, listcMiing to tins boast, silently 
yield themselves to it, and with an unquiet feeling- bow, 
in their reliiiious meditative hour, to the monster tyrant 
that atlirms his ri«;lit to hold sway in tlK' spiritual 
world. 

Thus it has hai)|)enel that the momentous interests 
of the future life, as set forth by Christianity, because 
they profoundly nunc the soul, lead both the defenders 
and the imi>ugners of a doeunientary religion aside from 
the only pertinent incpiiry — Are its facts duly esta- 
blished, accor«ling to the ordinary maxims of testimony, 
while they discuss controversies to which religion is 
related only in common with the most familiar move- 
ments of social life. Let philosophers deny, if they 
please, the existence of a material world : but why 
should the teachers of Christianity, rather than any 
other class of men, come forward to o^^pose the para- 
dox ? If that paradox has, in fact, any meaning at all, 
or if it carries any inference wliich men ought to listen 
to, then should lawyers leave their courts, as well as 
divines their jiulpits, and merchants their markets, and 
physicians their hospitals, to join in the debate. Vi any 
persons are intei'ested in this abstruse question, all are 
so alike — demonstrably all are interested in one and the 
same degree. Or let philosophers turn about and deny 
the existence, not of the material, but of the immaterial 
world. All men, in this instance, as well as in the other, 
and all human interests, duties, functions, hopes, and 
fears, are either alike concerned in the refutation of this 
dogma, or may alike, in their several circles of practical 
activity, look upon it with indiiference. Or again, let 
philosophers affirm that an iron fatality — an immoveable 
sequency of physical causes and effects — rules the world. 



28 ESSAY I. 

If there be any practical inference whatever — any infer- 
ence which demands respectful hearing — attaching to 
this doctrine, then that consequence hears evenly upon 
all activities, upon all motives, upon all reasons of con- 
duct, upon all calculations of futurity; and should either 
be allowed to arrest the entire machinery of human life, 
or should be utterly forgotten and neglected, whenever 
men are called to act and feel as rational and moral beings. 

It enters into the definition of metaphysical problems 
— that they are universals. To bring them, therefore, 
down upon one class of instances, to the exclusion of 
other instances, is an enormous solecism. To single out 
Christianity from the crowd of human affairs and inte- 
rests, and to assail it, so singled out, with alleged 
demonstrations which, by their very nature, are equally 
true of all things, or false of all, is the same sort of pro- 
ceeding, as if a mathematician, after demonstrating the 
properties of the triangle, were to apply his doctrine 
only to such triangles as are formed by the rafters and 
joists of a roof. 

Those who at the present time would avow themselves 
as, in the main, the disciples of Jonathan Edwards, and 
affirm that they regard the " Essay on Freedom of Will" 
as an exhaustive argument, leaving nothing to be desired 
on that side, will protest against the unfairness of the 
attempt to give him his place among fatalists, or to 
admit that he has given any occasion of triumj^h to 
modern materialists, pantheists, atheists. 

If on the present occasion we consent to this challenge, 
which brings an eminently devout man over to a position 
among the enemies of all belief, we must do so on the 
ground of reasons such as these following : — 

The extreme foi-m of philosophic fatalism is that 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 29 

which explicitly, and without disguise, attirins the 
distinction between pliysical and moral causation to be 
imaginary — an illusion — a vulgar prej udice. This dogma 
has perhaps never been conveyed in simpler or more 
intelligible terms than in those — often quoted — of 
Didei-ot : — " Kegardez-y de pres, et vous verrez que le 
mot liberte est un mot vide de sens ; qu'il n\v a point, 

et qu'il ne pent y avoir d'etres libres Le motif 

nous est toujours exterieur, etranger, attache ou par une 
nature, ou par une cause quelconque, qui n'est pas 

nous Mais s'il n'y a point de liberte, 11 n'y a 

point d'action qui merite la louange ou le blame ; il n''y 
a ni vice, ni vertu, rien dont il faille recompenser ou 

chatier II n'y a (ixx'wie sorte des causes a pro- 

prement parler ; ce sont les causes physiques. II n'y a 
qu'une sorte de nccessite, c'est la meme pour tous les 
etres." 

Recent writers, whom we need not cite, not intending 
to enter into controversy with them, have laboured to 
conceal the oftensiveness of this doctrine, and to render 
it less repugnant to the reason and consciousness of the 
mass of men, by means of elaborate and ingenious 
mystitications ; all which, however, when given in the 
fewest words, can mean nothing less, nothing else than 
this: — Human actions are as "the circumstances" and 
" the disposition ;" and this disposition, taken at any 
moment of a man's life, is the product of an antecedent 
series of circumstances, interior and exterior — animal, 
and, as we say — moral, which have w^rought together to 
make him what he is. This doctrine, whatever may be 
the softening or the glozings that are attached to it, we 
must take leave to speak of as identical with that pro- 
fessed by Diderot, and cited above. 



80 ESSAY I. 

Now, let everything be granted to the full that can 
fairly be affirmed on behalf of the author of the " Essay 
on Freedom of Will," for the purpose of bringing him 
off clear of any association with writers of this atheistic 
class ; let it be said that this Christian divine opposes 
himself strenuously, and triumphantly too, to the irre- 
ligious doctrines of the fatalists ; that if the completeness 
of his exculj^ation of himself in this behalf is not per- 
ceived and admitted, the fault is attributable to the 
reader's own confusion of mind, and his inability to under- 
stand an abstruse argument : grant all this, or more, 
and yet the fact stands before us that a large proportion 
of persons — the intelligent and the educated, who may 
have read the essay, and who, at the moment when 
certain portions of it are under the eye, believe them- 
selves to apprehend the author's reasonings and dis- 
tinctions, quickly lose what they thought they had held, 
and relapse into an intellectual condition of a very 
ambiguous sort. Question them categorically, and they 
will say, "Edwards is no fatalist;" but ask them to 
give you the grounds of the distinction which they draw 
between his doctrine and that of Diderot, and they 
would acknowledge themselves perplexed ; they would 
have recourse to the book itself, if at hand, and show 
you the page on which you may read for yourself the 
author's exculpatory averments and distinctions. 

Distinctions of an abstruse kind, which are not under- 
stood Avithout an effort, and which few minds can retain 
for any length of time, may abundantly suffice for some 
purposes, but they prove themselves to be wholly 
insufficient in relation to other purposes ; as, for instance, 
in relation to the agencies and energies, the obligations 
and the requirements of everyday life, a very little of 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 31 

argument may be quite enougli to save a sound mind 
from its entanolement with the ])aradoxes and the 
sophisms of the fataHst. But it will be quite otherwise 
when the same mind, the same healtliy good sense, falls 
in upon itself, to cont-end, as it may, with the very same 
paradoxes and sophisms, thought of in their bearing 
upon the first principles of morals, and upon the elements 
of abstract theology. In this dim region, and on this 
ground, the man, well taught and thoughtful as we sup- 
pose him to be, finds himself grappling in the dark with 
an adversary whose power to injure him maybe greater 
than he thinks. 

The religious man, struggling with giant doubts that 
threaten the very life of his soul, will find himself every 
day less and less able to draw comfort or confidence 
from nice distinctions or subtile demonstrations, such as 
those are which had availed — as he thought— to rescue 
the argument of Edwards from its apparent connection 
with the fatalism of pantheists and atheists. 

We come round again, then, to our point, and afiSrm 
that, when Logic interferes with Theology, it may do 
more harm than those think of w^ho resort to it as a 
means of advancing our religious knowledge. But it 
may be said, If Logic be valid, and if its results are 
demonstrably certain, who shall stay it in its course or 
repel it, as if it were an intrusion ? If logicians can so 
establish their position in any department of human 
thought — if they can so fortify themselves there that 
we cannot drive them off from their ground — who is it 
that presumes to find fault? The master of Logic, 
Aristotle, has taught his followers to be fearless, if only 
they adhere to his methods of assault and defence. 

And how fearlessly did this mighty reasoner, who 



32 ESSAY I. 

wielded so long the iron sceptre of a wordy despotism, 
affirm things to be, which are not ! The instances are 
familiar to every one who is conversant with the history 
of philosophy. 

What we mean by Logic, when we thus deprecate its 
interference with Theology, is the attempt, by the formal 
collocation of propositions, to reach conclusions in matters 
where the unknown is involved, and is commingled with 
what is known to us, either as matter of consciouness, 
or of observation and experiment. We ask leave here 
to bring in the aid of an illustration, not intending to 
push it further than shall seem fair. 

" It has lately been surmised by some adventurous 
spirits among us that great, nay, incalculable effects of a 
mechanic sort maybe drawn from — who shall believe it? 
— the employment of the vapour that arises in bubbles, as 
we know, from the surface of water on the boil. But 
that this strange surmise is Avithout foundation, and 
that the hopes vainly built thereon shall turn out to be 
nothing better than a bubble, may easily be proved, and 
may be made evident to all men's understandings that will 
give heed to the reason of things, as shall now be shown. 

" Let us first ask what this vapour or steam is whereof 
we are now to speak, and from the action of which such 
great things are expected to come. It is, we are told — 
and we are willing to grant it — it is the offspring of the 
combination of two elements, namely, fire and water. 
But now, before we inquire concerning the inherent 
properties of either of these elements — separately, we 
wish this only to. be granted to us — and it is an axiom 
manifestly certain or self-evident, and which, we suppose, 
none will call in question who retain the faculty of reason, 
and it is this — that there will never be found, in the sum 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 3S 

or product of two quantities or matters of any sort, more 
than is contained in the two separately estimated. To 
imagine the contrary of this axiom were the same thing 
as to say that two and three put together make seven, 
or any other number. Certainly, we need give ourselves 
little pains for establishing what is so manifest. 

" Now then we come to a more particular inquiry con- 
cerning the nature of these two elements — fire and water. 
We take, first, this last. In comparison of the three ele- 
ments, fire being now put out of view — (there are only 
four elements, as we well know, for the notion of a 
qui?itess€?ice is a mere phantasy) — water is the weaker 
of the three ; in respect of earth, it is weak and unstable ; 
for let but an infimt apply a finger to its surfjice and it 
forth witli gives way, or yields itself to so feeble a motion. 
Moreover, under the rays of the sun, itself utterly va- 
nishes and ceases to be ; and that, in respect of air, water 
is the weaker of the two, we may either rest satisfied in 
that testimony which speaks of ' mighty winds,' or we 
may appeal to the experience of men in such instances as 
these : — say that water has gotten possession of a goodly 
garment, thoroughly sodden thereby ; now, let only this 
same garment, whether it be cloak or sheet of any sort, 
be hung up in the way — not of a mighty tempest, but in 
the course of the gentlest breeze or current of air: what 
happens in this case is this — that the stronger of the two, 
namely, air, drives forth and dislodges the weaker, name- 
ly, water, so that in a short space of time this cloth or 
garment is found to have changed masters ; for water 
hath confessed its feebleness in respect of air ; else how 
can we believe that it would so soon, and without noise, 
have abandoned what it had taken to itself, unless, indeed, 
it were conscious of its impotency as compared with its 

9* 



34 ESSAY I. 

vivrd ? Let this instance then suffice for proving our 
first point — namely, that water is a creature weaker than 
the other elements ; for we need not argue its weakness 
as compared with earth. 

" But now as to fire — the other mgredient of vapour or 
steam, as we are told. Some men will be ready to affirm 
that fire is indeed of a most powerful nature, and so we 
grant it to be in a certain sense ; but let us consider of 
what sort or quality is that jDOwer as to its metaphysic 
natm*e. We say it is of that sort which is proper to a 
nature which, more than any other known to us, is 
hungry, indigent, exigeant, and negative. How else is 
it that men have come to speak of fire with dread, calling 
it, and rightly so, the ' all-devouring element ?' Of so 
hungry a nature is this element, that it is ever crying 
' Give, give ;' and never does it rest content until it hath 
eaten up, and swallowed with greediness, all things near 
it, short of the very hardest matters, such as rocks, 
which it hath no stomach for. Fire is much like those 
sturdy beggars who, meeting men on the highway, ask 
alms, but, if denied, will take by force all that a man has, 
to the last rag. Who is it then, things being so, that 
shall think to seek for aid and help in any great work 
from that which, of all things known to us, is itself the 
most in need, and which itself actually dies and comes 
to nothing, or to pale ashes only, when it hath quite 
finished its meal ? 

" We may then quickly sum up this controversy, and 
shall appeal to the common sense and experience of men 
in thus concluding, that this expectation, entertained by 
certain overweening men, that, by conjoining the weak- 
est of the four elements with that one which is the most 
greedy and indigent of the four, they shall be able to 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 85 

furliior llieirineohanie devices — is a great folly; and sure 
Ave arc that the liopes which are built upon any such 
fanciful notion as this, contrary as it is to the coninion 
sense of mankind, shall turn out to be much like that 
whereon they are founded, namely, mere vapour or 
smoke, to the dismay of these dreamers, and the merri- 
ment of sober men that are lookers on." 

Of such quality as this was a large proportion of the 
reasonings of past times, and not a little of these times. 
But what should have been the treatment given it? 
Xot surely to attempt a course of counter-reasoning, 
resting upon the same ground of imagined analogies, 
and of verbal antitheses ; — but an immediate ai)peal to 
tacts. Is there any mechanic force in steam ? — Try. 

In any instance of a controversy concerning matters 
in relation to which an appeal to fiicts, or to direct evi- 
dence, or to undoubted experiences, may be made, this 
same mode of determining problems is, of course, to be 
resorted to. But is this the case in the instance of the 
ancient controversy concerning the liberty of human 
volitions? We might think it warrantable to assume 
as much in reading the noted "Essay" of Jonathan 
Edwards ; for in almost every section he makes an appeal, 
more or less direct, to the experience and consciousness 
of men. But then, in those elaborately-compacted para- 
graphs in which he laboui-s to drive his opponent into 
some glaring absurdity, his antithetic propositions are 
little better than compages of words — carrying with 
them a great weight of apparent meaning ; but, for 
finding the real value of which, we must go down into 
the depths of the relationship of mind and matter, in 
the animal structure, and in human nature, especially. 
These ever-recurrent phrases, about the " Will " and its 



S6 ESSAY I. 

conditions, the bandying of which from side to side 
makes up a nine-tenths of the essay, assume the very 
matter in debate. The demonstration is indeed irresis- 
tible, if only we are willing to let pass these wonted 
phrases, unexamined, and to refrain from inquiring con- 
cerning their correspondence with the structure of 
human nature. But if human nature, and if its inner 
constitution be in question, then it is not formal Logic 
that can avail us for the solution of the j)i'oblem, even 
to the value of a straw. 

Within the compass of this often-repeated half-dozen 
of phrases, about " the Will '' and its " determining 
motives," there are embraced the profoundest mysteries 
of the universe of intellectual and moral life. Say that 
these are mysteries wiiich wall ever defy the scrutiny of 
man: be it so: but this is certain, that questions of this 
order are only involved in greater perplexity when 
treated in any such manner as that which is attempted 
by Jonathan Ed^vards. We may amuse ourselves with 
seeming demonstrations in this style, as long as w^e 
please; — we may, as above supposed, show it to be 
absurd to look for mechanic force in the bubbles that 
play on the surface of boiling water : but let us look to 
the doings of the steam-engine, and be sickened of 
nugatory wordy reasonings about "the nature of 
things." Or w^e may prove it to be absurd to talk of 
any sort of liberty in the universe of thought and feel- 
ing: which does not resolve itself into an eternal series 
of physical causation. We may do this, and then find 
ourselves held in the relentless grasp of that pantheism 
wdiich worships eternal law as the parent of all things : 
— we may do this, and then find that our only means of 
escape from so terrible a despotism is — the irresistible 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 37 

consciousness of a life within us which is altogether of 
anotlier order. 



SECTIOX III. 

But if Logic — the Logic of words and propositions — 
may not help us in physical science, or in making known 
the constitution of the material world, may it not yield 
its aid in determining those controversies that have 
arisen among Christian men concerning the meaning of 
holy Scripture ? 

Logic will indeed help us when the terms and the 
propositions in Avhich it deals contain only such notions 
as lie within the grasp of the human mind ; but not at all 
when disputation arises concerning things that are occult, 
or that touch upon the infinite and the unseen. Not 
indeed as if such controversies may not be determined 
in a manner that is satisfactory to ingenuous minds ; but 
then this desirable consummation must be sought for 
altogether on another ground. 

A Logic that is more exact may easily be made to 
demolish, or drive off" from the field a Logic that is less 
exact. Coherent reasoning triumphs easily over inco- 
herent reasoning. Jonathan Edwards floors Whitby 
and the Pelagians. Calvinism is a more compactly- 
jointed system than Arminianism: and therefore it 
holds its ground boldly as opposed to its adversary. 
This may easily be granted, and then the two questions 
return upon us — How does each stand related to the 
constitution of the human mind ? and how to the testi- 
mony of Sciipture? Xeither of these questions finds 
a solution in those writings of the last age, or of earlier 



88 ESSAY I. 

times, which have treated tliem as if determiuable in 
scholastic style. We speak now of the controversy 
between Calvinists and Arminians or Pelagians, as a 
hihlical controversy simply, and we remit the considera- 
tion of it as related to the philosophy of hnman natnre. 
The fruitlessness of any such method of conducting a 
biblical controversy might well be argued from the 
instance of the " Inquiry Concerning Freedom of Will :" 
the acknowledged superiority of this treatise to works 
with which it might properly be compared — a superi- 
ority confessed by philosophers as well as by divines — 
and its exemption from the besetting sins of polemical 
literature, point it out as an unexceptionable instance. 
Yet, what has been the result ? A signal service has 
been rendered by it to the cause of certain momentous 
truths ; but this service has accrued indirectly ; while it 
has failed to bring the controversy between Calvinists 
and Arminians to an issue. The metaphysics of 
Edwards demolished the metaphysics of Whitby. This 
was a matter of course ; for the philosophy of Arminian- 
ism could not endure a rigid analysis. Moreover, the 
metaphysics of Edwards has availed to impose a degree 
of respect upon the flippancy of philosophers. But then 
— not to insist upon the fact that the "Inquiry" has 
become almost the text-book of infidelity — it has not 
brought the abstract argument home to the purely theo- 
logical difficulty. It has left things where they were in 
this respect, only with the disadvantage of suggesting a 
tacit conviction — that what Edwards could not effect 
can never be effected. The apparently incompatible pro- 
positions may therefore be affirmed, that, while he, as the 
champion of Calvinism, has achieved a victory, and has 
driven his antagonists from their ground, he has perpe- 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 39 

luatetl tlie religious dirtercnce by the mere fact of having 
failed in liis attempt to compose it. Is it, then, to be 
desired tliat a second pliilosophic Calvinist should under- 
take the task of convincing Arminians by scholastic 
Logic, and so of bringing them to a cordial acquiescence 
in the meaning of certain portions of the Scriptures ? 
Surely not. 

An accordance among Christians in matters of belief 
must be tlie result, not of the perfectionment of abstract 
theology, but of a better understanding of the structure 
and intention of the document of faith, which, unlike 
any other writing, is at once the work of human minds, 
and not less absolutely the work of the Divine Mind. 
As a human work — as a collection of ancient treatises, 
letters, and histories, composed by almost as many 
authors as there are separate pieces — it is confessedly 
liable to the ordinary conditions of other ancient litera- 
ture ; and not merely to the critical^ but to the logical 
conditions also that belong to the products of the human 
mind ; and therefore when interrogated in relation to 
certain abstract positio)2S, derived, 9iot from itself, nor 
known to its writers, but from the variable theological 
systems of successive ages, it will yield not a few appa- 
rent contrarieties. 

But the Scriptures claim no respect as authorities in 
religion, unless they be received as, in the fullest sense, 
a Divine work. As such, they must have their peculiar 
conditions ; and these (or the most important of them) 
spring from the fiict, that they contain information, 
explicit or implied, concerning more systems of things 
than one, or more orders of beings than one. But then 
this genuine information consists just of those portions, 
or fragments, or segments, of such systems, or of such 



40 ESSAY I 

series of causes, as involve practical inferences, import- 
ant to the special purpose of restoring men to virtue. 
It must follow that the harmony of these disjointed por- 
tions will never come within the range of the methods 
of human science ; for human science is drawn from one 
system only^ and is imperfect^ even in relation to that 
one system. 

Illustrations are always more or less faulty, and yet 
they may serve a good purpose when advanced simply 
as such ; and are not urged as if they were proofs or 
arguments. Let it then be supposed that, to a number 
of intelHgent persons, instructed in at least the elements 
of mathematical science, there were to be given — not a 
diagram or description — but some of the distinguishing, 
and some of the most recondite properties of the three 
conic sections — the ellipsis, the i)arabola, and the hyper- 
bola ; and let it be demanded of them, not only to find 
curves possessing precisely such properties, but to find 
one regular and simj^le figure which should contain the 
three harmoniously upon its surface. Now it must be 
granted, as hypothetically possible, that some one of 
these persons, either by a happy accident, or by force 
of his intelligence, might at length produce the cone, 
and demonstrate upon it the several projierties of the 
theorem. But, to make our illustration complete, it 
should be supposed that no such figure as a cone had 
ever actually been seen or thought of by the ^^ersons to 
whom the problem is given. What then would be the 
probable event ? May we not assume it as likely that 
each individual, attaching himself at the first moment 
to the properties of some one of the three propounded 
curves, and giving his attention exclusively to its j^ecu- 
liarities, and succeeding, perhaps, in the attempt to 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 41 

reconcile these separate conditions amon<r themselves, 
would be inclined to impugn, as necessarily false, those 
processes by which his companions were finding the 
other two curves; and, being satisfied as to the sound- 
ness of his own reasoning, would deem that of his friends 
absolutely irreconcilable^ with it. And so it must seem 
until the one true harmonizing figure is actually pro- 
duced. 

And yet how soon might a fierce controversy arise 
among tbe perplexed inquirers ! How soon would there 
take place a separation of the partisans of the ellipsis, the 
parabola, and the hyperbola ! The friends of the first of 
the curves would think themselves justified in denounc- 
ing the hyperbolists as extravagant heretics; while 
these, and' with exactly equal reason, would hold in 
contempt the timidity of the ellipsists. Meanwhile, the 
parabolists, much admiring their own moderation, and 
not doubting that it was they alone who held the happy 
middle-way upon which truth loves to walk, and hence 
believing themselves qualified to act as mediators be- 
tween the extreme parties, would gravely say much that 
was very plausible, and exceedingly well mtended ; but 
they would not, in fact, advance even a single step 
tov.'ard a true conciliation of the difference ;— for this 
simple reason— that they are just as far as their com- 
panions from knowing the actual prhiciple of explana- 
tion. The parabola may seem to be, but it is not in fact, 
or in any degree, a reconciling truth between the ellipsis 
and the hyperbola; for, in truth, the ellipsis and the 
hyperbola are not at variance. Meantime the contro- 
vt'rsy, although it tends to no satisfactory issue, is pro- 
ducing these two ill consequences (not to mention the 
excitement of bad fi clings among friends) namely, that 



42 



ESSAY I. 



those of the company whose temper was the most calm 
and sceptical would be haunted by troublesome suspi- 
cions, as if he who had proposed the problem had made 
sport of the ignorance of all, by affirming things that are 
strictly paradoxical and untrue. And then the bystand- 
ers w^ould almost certainly learn to treat the w^hole affair 
—the problem, its propounder, and the factions— with 
contempt. But we suppose that at this instant the pro- 
pounder of the problem enters, and forthwith extin- 
guishes the feud by the production of the cone !— all 
contrarieties are at once reconciled ; all suspicions are 
dispelled ; and eager dogmatists of all creeds are put to 
the blush ! 

To defend the propriety of this illustration in all its 
parts would be idle. It is enough if it throws any light 
upon the assertion, that the Scriptures, because they are 
true and divine, and because they propound separated 
parts, properties, or relations of systems not known to 
man, will for ever baffle the attempt to reduce their testi- 
mony within the completeness and rotundity of human 
science. If it be so, it must follow that metaphysical 
rea^soning, how exact soever, is not to be looked to as 
the means of adjusting biblical controversies. That it 
may seem for a while to do so is granted ; but the specious 
conciliation is either the mere confounding of an antago- 
nist by force of superior logical strength, or it has been 
effected by constraining adverse portions of the scrip- 
tural evidence. 



SECTION IV. 

In every argument or inquiry concerning the consti- 
tution of the material world, and especially concerning 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 43 



tho .triK-turc mid the functions of the living world, vege- 
tative Mul anini:il, it is unavoidable that the terms and 
the i.hrases therein employed, and which arc recurrmg 
in every paragraph, should be made to embrace some- 
thin- which i^s known, commingled with somethmg, or 
mu di that is unknown. For tins inconvenience there is 
no remedy. When we speak, for instance, ot those 
enemies of ve-etative life in virtue of which the plant 
secretes its several juices or its solids, the sap, the gum, 
the resin, the woody fibre, the seed, the pulp, we note 
certain iacts, but we suppose very much more. In the 
use of lano-uao-e for noting and conveying what we know 
as to exteTior^tacts,we are aware of the risk we incur at 
every step, which is that of imagining far more than we 
know, and of allowing our ignorance to cloak itself m 
the ambiijjuities of speech. 

Xo crreat mischief, however, ensues, in such cases, in 
the modern mode of discussing the subjects of physical 
science, so long as we keep an eye upon this source of 
error, and take care to disengage ourselves frequently 
from its consequences. The fault of our predecessors in 
philosophy was this, that they did not do so, but, on the 
contrary,'allowed themselves to believe that, so long as 
their Logic was ngidly exact, all must be right. In ad- 
herence to the better usages of modern physical sciences 
we learn to distrust all reasoning concerning the laws of 
the material world, in conducting which it becomes 
manifest tliat the terms we employ are commg to mclude 
a too large propoition of the unknown— larger than it is 
safe to allow them to carry. In such cases we abandon 
our Logic, and throw ourselves anew npon facts, by the 
means of enlarged observation and of reiterated experi- 
ments. 



44 ESSAY I. 

We need not stay here to adduce instances in illustra- 
tion of practices that are familiarly known to those who 
are conversant with any department of natural philoso- 
phy. The application of these same methods to subjects 
belonging to intellectual and moral j^hilosophy is not 
difficult, nor is it fairly questionable. Take the case now 
before us, of the conditions of moral causation attaching 
to the volitions of beings like ourselves, or, in other 
words, the question of " Freedom of Will." We might 
gather our set of terms and phrases — the verbal staple 
of this ancient controversy — from any page of the essay 
just now in view. 

At once it is felt by every reflective reader — and it 
will be granted by every such reader who is not wedded 
to some controversial doctrine — that these words, and 
these constantly-recurrent combinations of phrases, and 
these often-repeated propositions which pass under the 
eye unexamined, do, in fact, stand representative of 
impenetrable mysteries in the structure of human nature 
and of animal nature, in all orders. The page or the 
paragraph offers to the eye — or say to the reason — a due 
catenation of affirmative or negative sentences; there 
is the proper antithesis, and then comes the looked-for 
conclusion, and then the alleged absurdity of any con- 
trary supposition :^all looks well, so far as words can 
avail to carry us within the veil of the temple, and give 
the foot a place in the adytum of intellectual and moral 
life. But to how small an extent is this entrance, in fact, 
obtained by any such nugatory means ? 

There is, indeed, a lower level of animal existence — 
the very lowest — in relation to which the Logic of writers 
like Jonathan Edwards may be admitted to be sufficient, 
or adequate to the facts ; at least in following it there is 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 45 

heard no loiul protest uttered in contradiction of it. But 
it is lar otlierwise as we ascend upon the scale of life, 
for, at every step of tliis a^scent the protest— the contra- 
diction, becomes a degree more distinct ; and by the time 
that we have reached the uppermost stage— even the 
phuform of a fully-developed human nature—the world 
of high thought and of great actions, this conti-adiction, 
this protest, if it do not utter its voice as a thunder, yet 
so speaks within the soul of the man as that we accept 
it as a timely monition from God. 

One might well be amazed in finding that some half- 
dozen or more of phrases— to few or none of which a 
distinct meaning can be attached — when worked upon 
in pedantic style, and handled, this way and that Avay, 
in apposition and in opposition, and in artificial sequence 

are trusted to as means of laying open the structure 

of human nature ! 

In following upwards the scale of mental develop- 
ment we find, as we go on, first, faculties or powers of 
wider grasp and greater force, and then, and as the 
result of these, a far more intricate interaction of facul- 
ties, so that the ultimate products are such as immeasur- 
ably surpass, in quality, and in quantity, and in compli- 
cation, any with which we had become acquainted 
among the lower orders of the animated Avorld. 

But now the ancient and scholastic practice of treating 
all questions of human nature abstractedly and meta- 
physically has induced the belief that volition in man is 
simple or uniform in its mode of springing up hi the mind. 
Yet if the real world of sentient and voluntary beings is 
looked at, it will at once be seen, first, that each species 
has its peculiar conditions of volition, and that volition 
in each species resr.lts, at different times, from very 



46 ESSAY I. 

different internal processes. It would appear, tlien, to 
be the natural course to look out, first, for the simplest 
instances of volition, and then to ascend from them to 
such as are complex, and therefore not so readily 
analyzed. Tliis order of investigation directs us to the 
inferior classes of the animal community — it being proba- 
ble that, in observing a less complicated organization, we 
shall become qualified to dissect that which is more so. 
For we may fairly presume that the more complicated 
orders take up into their mental machinery certain ele- 
ments that have been imperfectly developed in . the 
lower ranks of existence. It is on this presumption 
that we avail ourselves of the fruits of observation 
gathered from the movements and habits of inferior 
species. For it is only by a reference to our own con- 
sciousness that we learn to interpret such facts; and 
this interpretation presupposes the homogeneity of the 
primary elements of sentient existence. If a pure intel- 
ligence, or a simply rational essence — Avholly destitute 
of all appetite, emotion, imagination — were to descend 
into this world of hungry, thirsty, passionate, irascible, 
and pleasure-loving beings, it would find itself utterly at 
a loss in endeavouring to comj^rehend movements which 
it witnessed. Tliat is to say, having no participation of 
the elements of the animal and moral nature, it would 
want the glossary of mundane life, and would possess no 
means of interpretation ; — all it saw would be a riddle. 

But this is not the case when man looks around him 
upon his fellows of inferior rank ; for possessing, as he 
does, every element of animal and moral life, he discerns 
few operations which he does not at once know how to 
translate into the language of his own nature ; and thus 
he is qualified to philosophize as well upon the mental 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 



47 



cuiitbrmatiun of birds aiul quiiarupecls as upon that of 
his own species. We say, he witnesses few operations 
that are unintelligible to him ; but there are movements 
carried on, especially by the more minute tribes, and 
those that are the most renu)te from himself, which 
nothing m his own nature enables him to understand ; 
they are tacts that are not interpretable by conscious- 
ness, and accordingly we designate them by the term 
instinct, which has no clear significance beyond that 
which attaches to it as standing for a class of facts that 
are not understood. Such tacts can afford us no aid in 
analyzing the operations of the human mind, and must 
therefore be excluded from our course of argument. 

The inferior orders of conscious beings offer to our 
notice two or three distinguishable elements of volition, 
together with the rude connuencements of another, for 
the full development of which we must look to tlie 
higher nature of man. 

A proper test for discovering the elements of the 
mental conformation of any order of beings is afforded, 
iirst, by the educational treatment which common ex- 
'perience proves to be applicable to it; and then, by 
the emotions or sentiments which are excited in our- 
selves by its qualities or dispositions. In this niethod 
we employ, as if it were, a chemical agent for bringing 
to light a concealed ingredient. The dog is the subject 
of abundantly more education, and he is the object of 
more sentiment than the horse— not arbitrarily or acci- 
dentally so, but because he possesses more intellectual 
facultyil aiul more sensibility. His senses are eminently 
acute; his memory is retentive and exact; his passive 
power of acquiring habits is great ; and, to comi)lete 
his mental endowments, he is able, in a considerable 



48 ES'SAY I. 

degree, to hold in combination more than two or three 
connected ideas, and among them to select the proper 
inference from the antecedents. Thus qualified, he 
remembers his master's usages, he apprehends his mas- 
ter's operations, and he acts his part in accomplishing 
his master's intentions. And then, as a moral being, he 
is susceptible of so pertinacious an attachment to indivi- 
duals, he has so much sense of duty and of honour, and 
is capable of so intense a wretchedness under the sense 
of ill-conduct and meiited displeasure, that he becomes 
the proper object of correlative sentiments of affection, 
complacency, or displeasure in the human mind. The 
dog, in virtue of his individual dispositions, and apart 
from all sophistication or extravagance, is regarded with 
feelings which it would be as unreasonable to restrain, 
when so called forth, as it would be to bestow them, in 
the same degree, upon any other species of domesticated 
animals. 

Nevertheless, the dog is limited in his range of men- 
tal faculty and of sensibility; and, in comparing his 
powers with those of man, we see the more clearly the 
foundation of that different treatment of which the 
higher nature is the subject, and we see, too, the 
absurdity of any physical doctrine which affirms the 
agency of men, of brutes, and of machines, to be one and 
the same thing. The dog, as he is not endowed with 
that inexplicable faculty which prompts the beaver 
to construct for himself a hut, or the white ant to 
erect a cathedral of mud, or the rook to weave for her 
family an aerial tabernacle, is not gifted with any 
reasoning power for attaining a similar result. If 
deprived of his comfortable kennel he will nestle in a 
corner, or edge himself into a rick; but he never 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 49 

attempts (though loose niiiteiials of all sorts may be 
lying about) to construct a house. Or, to exhibit the 
same limitation of faculty under another condition : — 
the dog may learn to take a penny to the shop, and to 
deposit it on the counter, and, with significant gesture, 
to demand his roll : but no education would teach him 
to understand the equity of the relation between two 
pence and two rolls, and three pence and three rolls ; 
nor, supposing that he had dropped one of the pieces of 
money on the way, would he draw for himself the infer- 
ence that he must, therefore^ content himself with one 
roll the less. And yet a child would soon perceive these 
relations, and deduce the proper inference ; or at least 
he would understand them as by a flash of intelligence, 
when explained to him. 

The want, or at least the limitation of the power of 
abstraction, and of the comparison of complex relations, 
afl*ects, in an essential manner, the moral constitution of 
these inferior species, even of the most intelligent of 
them ; while, on the other hand, the possession of such 
powers confers upon man his responsibility, invests him 
with the anxious prerogative of being master of his 
destinies ; and, in a word, transfers him from the pre- 
sent to some future system of retributive treatment. 

The more sensitive species of animals, such as the 
dog and the elephant, enter within the pale of the 
moral system, or stand at its threshold — just as, in vir- 
tue of their sagacity, they enter within the pale of the 
intellectual system — by their susceptibility of emotions, 
which places them, to a certain extent, in communion 
with man, and renders them the objects of his moral 
sensibilities. This parallelism between the intellectual 
and the moral difference between man and the brute 

3 



50 ESSAY I. 

holds entire. Animals of the higher orders will do 
anything that comes within the range of association of 
ideas, or of the very simplest connection of cause and 
effect ; but not more. And in like manner are they open 
to keen emotions of gratitude, shame, revenge ; yet we 
soon touch the boundary of their moral capacities. The 
elephant has his emotions, and he is retentive of them ; 
but he does not abstract the quality which has so 
strongly affected him from the act, or the person, to 
which it belongs ; he is conscious of that difference in 
temper which distinguishes one of his keepers from 
another, and he treats them both accordingly ; but he 
does not form a separate idea of goodness and malig- 
nity, much less does he compare such abstracted ideas 
with his own correlative emotions ; and therefore he 
attains to no complex notion of virtue and of vice. As 
the consequence of this deficiency of faculty, the animal 
does not think of his oion dispositions, or muse con- 
cerning his personal character, nor does he institute a 
mental comparison between his own behaviour or habit- 
ual temper and any abstract notion of moral qualities. 
Therefore neither the dog nor the elephant condemns 
or dislikes himself^ much less does he conceive the idea 
of a better disposition, as an object of his ambition; 
and therefore he never attempts the work of self-educa- 
tion by repressing ill feelings, and by favouring the 
better. 

Accordingly, self-originated reformation is not looked 
for from the brute. He may indeed be amended in his 
dispositions by external treatment ; he may also become 
more or less tractable in consequence of changes in his 
constitution or his diet ; but he never undergoes a 
change in consequence of a mental process — bringing 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 61 

abstract qualities into comparison, and allowing- one of 
tlieni to bo chosen and followed, while others are hated 
and avoided. If it be asked on what groun.d we infer 
these deficiencies of internal structure in the brute 
mind, we rei)ly, that the internal defect may fairly be 
implied from the absence of the proper outward results 
of the supposed faculty. In following even the most 
sagacious animal through his movements, in connection 
with new and artiticial occasions, we catch him at fault 
precisely from the want of the power of abstraction : 
the internal structure, though recondite, is laid bare in 
such instances, and we cease to wonder that a being so 
deficient should not provide for his welfare by artificial 
means. 

And the very same deficiency necessitates the per- 
manence of his moral condition ; and — knowing it — 
though we feel complacency or displacency towards the 
animal orders according to their dispositions, we neither 
assign to them the praise of virtue in the one case, nor 
impute to them the blame of vice in the other. The ani- 
mal that does not observe proportions, that does not use 
instruments or construct machines, does not, for the same 
reason, attempt to remodel his own character ; he does 
not, in any degree, educate himself. Virtue, vice, 
praise, blame, law, government, retribution, are condi- 
tions proper to the treatment of a being who, by his 
use of arbitrary signs, by his employment of compli- 
cated means, and by his manifold conversions of the 
powers of nature to his particular advantage, makes it 
evident that he possesses a faculty which, hi connection 
with his moral sensibilities, renders virtue, vice, praise, 
blame, law, government, retribution, the true correla- 
tives of his nature. 



52 ESSAY I. 

The sophism, therefore, which would sever virtue, vice, 
praise, blame, law, government, retribution, from human 
nature, contains an absurdity of precisely the same de- 
gree as that which would attach these conditions to the 
brute. It were a folly to look for arts and accomjDlish- 
ments among tigers, kites, sharks ; and it is an equal folly 
not to look for them among men : it is an error of the 
same magnitude to deny that the being who builds, 
plants, writes, and calculates, cannot work upon his own 
dispositions, or, in other words, is not blameworthy, as 
to affirm that tigers, kites, and sharks might, if they so 
pleased, convert their natures, and become more amiable 
and less rapacious than hitherto they have shown them- 
selves to be. 

The conjunction of the higher elements of intellectual 
and moral being with the common ingredients of animal 
life is beautifully developed in observing the growth and 
expansion of the human mind from infancy to manhood. 
Nature, in j^reparing to bring upon the theatre of the 
world so noble an agent as man, steps back, that she may 
take the bolder leap, and reach a higher stage. Man, 
throughout the period of his infancy, is, as an agent, 
below his fellows in the animal world. It cannot be 
doubted that the perceptions of the human infant are 
more confused than those of the young of animals ; and 
probably they amount to nothing more than vague sen- 
sations, conveying no knowledge of the external Avorld : 
its instincts also are less determinate than those of other 
new-born animals ; and the muscular force is a mere ele- 
ment, which remains yet to be developed. The develop- 
ment of this power seems to be effected by the constitu- 
tion of an immediate connection between the muscular 
excitability and every sensation that affects the sensorium, 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 53 

whetlier arising from within or lioni without. In these 
movements there is no volition, there is nothing but the 
nuiscuhir contraction, as an immediate sequence of sensa- 
tion. Thus are the muscles brought into play, strength- 
ened, and taught to obey— instantaneously, the mind. 
The distinction usually made between voluntary and 
involuntary muscular action is clearly founded upon a 
real difference. But then, when volition is declared to 
be a mental process, consistmg of successive parts, a false 
supposition is suggested, as if movements that are not 
involuntary were effects of rapidly conducted delibera- 
tions and determinations. That complex process which, 
even in the adult, takes place only on occasions when 
antagonist motives are in conflict — as when prudential 
or moral considerations are wrestling with desires — is 
assumed to be the model of all the acts of the mind. 
But if we give attention to the preparation which nature 
is making in the first months of life for bringing the 
machine into full play, we shall be led to think that the 
main business of infancy is the formation of that habit 
of the animal system which places its movements in 
immediate sequence with the sensations and with the 
emotions. 

Mobility, elasticity, promptitude, as the conditions of 
muscular action, get the start of the deliberative facul- 
ties ; and they so possess themselves, by usage, of the 
animal and the intellectual being, that they hold through 
life their priority ; so that, whatever power reason may 
at length acquire, man acts ten thousand times in the 
spontaneous manner which he learns in infancy, for once 
that he acts in the manner which metaphysical writers 
describe when they profess to analyze the process of 
voUtion. It is not until the power of locomotion has put 



54 ESSAY I 

the pupil of nature in trust, to a certain extent, with his 
own preservation, and when, as its consequence, he is 
brought hourly into new circumstances, that the first 
developments of reason may be observed. By this time 
the sequences of events fix themselves in the memory, 
and give birth to the expectation of like results from like 
antecedents. Then follow courses of conduct founded 
upon this expectation, and thenceforward — deliberative 
volitions ; and thus it is that the mental machine is fast 
getting its wheels, one after another, into gear. 

It would be curious, and perhaps instructive, to trace 
from its beginnings that expansion of the mind which 
imparts to it a deliberative power, and which constitutes 
man a voluntary agent, in the higher and proper sense 
of the term, and which, in its matured state, carries him 
to an immeasurable distance beyond the inferior species 
of sentient beings. In the nursery the hasty demands 
of appetite are arrested by maternal vigilance, and mo- 
tives of another kind are placed before the mind, and 
antagonist considerations are urged upon its attention. 
Here, then, begins the process of complex volition ; and 
at that moment the being sets foot upon a course that 
has no limit, and is translated from the lower world of 
animal life into the higher sphere of rational and moral 
existence. It is then that he is introduced to the com- 
munity of responsible agents, and takes up his heirship 
of an interminable destiny. 

Such of the desires as are sensual or selfish are con- 
stantly being brought into opposition, rendering the 
gratification of the one incompatible with that of the 
other : the two kinds stand in conflict for a moment, or 
more ; and whether the final decision be better or worse, 
the mind is, by the mere contest, exercising its faculty 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 55 

of complex thought, and not improbably admits, during 
the moments of hesitation, other considerations of a pru- 
dential or moral kind, which, even if they do not prevail, 
yet enlarge the power of mental comprehension and 
comparison. 

Where education does its work efficiently, the mind 
learns to obey the law of real or rational connection^ 
in the place of that of simple suggestion, and it br.'ngs 
forward, like a faithful and intelligent minister, those 
considerations which properly belong to the occasion. 
This expansion of the mind makes itself apparent, in some 
cases, by the development of the inventive faculty ; and 
the young mechanician, soon after the time when he has 
taken his place among responsible agents, is seen, in the 
exercise of the very same faculties of abstraction and of 
complex thought, to form conceptions of an end or 
design, and to select the fittest means for its attain- 
ment. 

AVe should here notice that change in the sentiments 
of those around him which insensibly accompanies the 
early development of the mind. Even before this has 
taken place, the infant has made himself the object of 
complacency or of displacency, according to his original 
dispositions, or his individual character ; and, before he 
is blamed or applauded^ is loved, more or less, not only 
with a love of general benevolence, and not only with 
the instinctive parental fondness, but wdth a specific 
feeling of moral estimation. 

This happens before the era of the unquestionable 
development of the power of self-government, and before 
tlie child is properly deemed praiseworthy or blame- 
able, or is accounted to be amenable to law. But after 
this important change has taken place, a corresponding 



56 ESSAY I. 

change is insensibly effected in the conduct and senti- 
ments of others. 

In the first place, particular actions are approved or 
blamed, on the principle that now^ by the expansion of 
the faculties, it has become the law of his mental opera- 
tions, that, in the moment of action, the several antago- 
nist motives that should influence action, are, with more 
or less distmctness, present to the mind. The agent, 
therefore, is deemed to have made his choice, for the 
better or the worse, from among alternatives; and it 
were to degrade him from the rank to which he has 
attained to suppose that, like the inferior orders of the 
animal world, he did but obey a single impulse. 

This is not all; for the agent is supposed to have 
made his choice, for the better or the worse, in this par- 
ticular instance, according to his individual dispositions; 
and the action is approved or blamed, not only as an 
insulated fact, but as an indication of character. And 
then this character is the object, not only of complacency 
or of displacency, but of approval or of hlame. The 
character is approved or blamed on the very same prin- 
ciple — differently applied, and further extended — which 
is the ground of the approval or blame of particular 
actions, namely, that the now-expanded faculty of the 
agent enables him, at once, to form abstract notions 
of moral qualities — to compare such notions with the 
sentiments they excite in his own mind, and in the minds 
of others — to institute comparisons between bis own 
dispositions and the dispositions which he admires or 
condemns in others ; and, finally, to make his perso- 
nal dispositions the subject of a process of self-educa. 
tion. 

That so much as this is presumed to be true by man- 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 57 



kind generally, is shown by the three-fold treatment that 
is adopted with the view of amending the conduct and dis- 
positions, as well of adults as of children. First, rewards 
and pmiishments are employed for insuring right deter- 
minations in particular instances of conduct. Secondly, 
it is usual to attempt to amend the dispositions and the 
character by an external management of the exciting 
causes of the various emotions, and passions, and appe- 
tites. These two methods are applicable, in an inferior 
degree, even to animals — to the horse, the dog, the ele- 
phant. But that which we name as the third method 
of treatment is exclusively proper to human nature ; and 
its applicability rests upon the fact, that the human 
mind includes an element which is not granted to the 
brute. This is the endeavour to awaken in the mind the 
desire of reforming itself— that is, its habits and its set- 
tled dispositions. This differs from the second method — 
or the management of dispositions by external means ; 
and it proceeds upon the known fact, that an introverted 
effort of the mind may, and does often, and under a great 
variety of circumstances, take place. 

It is, w^e say, the usage of the human mind to make 
its own acts and dispositions the subject of its medita- 
tions, and these meditations enkindle emotions of the 
same kind with those that are excited by the view of 
similar acts and dispositions in other men ; — and to these 
emotions is superadded a specific feeling, more intense 
than the first, and which borrows its force from self-love 
— becoming either complacent or displacent : in the lat- 
ter case bringing with it emotions of shame, fear, and 
remorse. It is, moreover, proper to the human mind 
to conceive abstractedly of a mode of action, or of 
a style of character better than its oxen ; and to assume 



58 ESSAY I, 

that conce2:)tion as a permanent object of desire. In 
consequence of such a desire, a tendency towards it, 
more or less strong and uniform, takes place. In this 
manner, amendments, reformations, and even complete 
revolutions of character, are every day occurring within 
the human system. It should here be stated that those 
deteriorations of character which are also continually 
going on within the same system do not come about by 
a corresponding process of the mind, or as the result of 
a conception of vicious qualities, and a consequent pur- 
suit of them ; for they arise from the unresisted pro- 
gress of sensual or malignant passions, which, by indul- 
gence, become at length paramount forces. 



SECTION V. 

Whether this faculty of reformation, which divides 
man from his fellow-sentient beings by an immense inter- 
val, must be regarded as inscrutable, or whether it 
admits of being separated into its components, is a ques- 
tion we may leave to be considered by psychologists : 
nor need it be determined in its relation to morals or 
religion, since the fact of its existence is admitted ; and 
this fact is enough for any practical purpose. The intel- 
ligible principles of morals and Christian piety have no 
more connection with a scientific analysis than have the 
labours of the mechanician with a theory — could it be 
given, of gravitation. 

But this power of introverted action, which, by 
emphasis, may be termed the excellence of human na- 
ture, is often absolutely dormant, just as the faculty of 
abstraction also lies dormant amouGf barbarous tribes. 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 59 

Moreover, it is expose.! to nuieh damage, and may at 
len>-th be quite enfeebled, by a vicious course of lite. 
Man may either lie inert, beneath the level of his proper 
destiny, or, .vhich is a more melanel.oly case, he n.ay 
fall below that level-he may revert to the moral nnbe- 
cilitv of infoncv ; and he may sink further into an abyss, 
where he grovels hopelessly, and must be content to 
share sentiments of loathing with the hog or the hyena 
Sad condition this of «<;o<;>s.-7-/ .'-nuserable rmn and 
decay of the noblest structure ! 

It should always be ren.embered, that, if the actual 
condition of human nature be contemplated merely as a 
matter of physical science, it must be admitted to have 
sustahied, from whatever cause, a universal damage or 
shock; inasmuch as its higher faculties do not, like the 
faculties of the inferior classes, work auspiciously, or m 
accordance with their intention; often-and in a vast 
proportion of instances-are they overborne, defeated, 
destroyed ; while in no instances do they take th.it full, 
free, and perfect course which is abstractedly proper to 
them We mav, if we please, collate this physical fact 
with certain principles of theology, and may derive froni 
the comparison a confirmation of our religious behel. 
But this is not a matter that is pertinent to our imme- 
diate purpose. 

Every new power that is admitted into a complex 
machinery tends, of course, to multiply the variations 
of its movements, and so to render a calculation of those 
movements more voluminous or difficult; yet not to 
render them at all less causal, or in any sense fortmtous. 
But this general principle is open to some apparent 
exceptions; as thus-if the superadded power be of a 
commanding sort, it will simplify the movements rather 



60 ESSAY 1. 

than complicate them, and so bring them more within 
the range of calculation : instances may easily be 
adduced in which the agencies of higher and more com- 
plex natures are more simple and invariable than those 
of inferior beings. The mental machinery of the adult 
contains more movements, and is more complex, than 
that of the infant ; for new faculties have come into play, 
the materials of intellectual action have been vastly aug- 
mented, and many susceptibilities have been quickened, 
which are non-existent in the infant. But while the 
actions of the infant from one moment to the next may 
defy calculation, the actions of the adult, though open 
to a hundred times more influences, are often simplified 
by the predominance of some one of them. Thus, a 
ruling passion, long indulged, sets through the soul like 
an impetuous current, and gives a high degree of uni- 
formity to the conduct. Or a similar uniformity and 
simplification may result from the predominance of vir- 
tuous emotions. Or, again, that very expansion of the 
intellectual faculties which imparts the greatest organic 
complexity to the machine may, at the same time, when 
it reaches its perfection, restore to the operations of the 
mind the most absolute simplicity. Truth is one ; and 
it is the glory and perfection of the intellectual nature 
to perceive that oneness; and in proportion as truth is 
so perceived, and is embraced, and is delighted in, the 
agency of the being will become so much the more sim- 
ple, and calculable^ and will lose its character of varia- 
bleness. The same is true of the perfection of the moral 
faculties ; and it may be afiirmed, that perfection in all 
orders, and of all kinds, tends, with equal steps, towards 
simplicity, uniformity, and constancy. 

And yet what, it may be asked, can be gained by 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 61 

applying to t/iis simplicity, or to t/iis constancy, which 
is tlie very character of perfection, any term or descrip- 
tive phrase which, with equal or greater propriety, may 
be assumed to belong to the lowest orders of the animal 
world ? There is a sense in which it might be so applied ; 
but it must be an infelicitous and ill-omened perversion 
so to do. We gain, it is true, the conception of an awful 
goddess— stern in feature, inflexible in temper, and im- 
placably despotic, who rules the universe, and who vouch- 
safes no other reply to supplicants, than the monotonous 
response — Whatever is, must be. Nothing is more infal- 
lible than the connection between perfect intelligence, 
and the perception of a truth presented to it. Who 
could wish to be privileged with a freedom from this 
sort of necessity ? To whom can this kind of despotism 
be galling, or intolerable ? Nor can any but the lost 
covet that other species of liberty which excuses us from 
the moral necessity of taking always the road of virtue. 
To be bound by this necessiti/ is the true libertij ; and, 
in tact, at every step of our approach to the high ground 
of intellectual and moral perfection, do liberty and neces- 
sity merge and become identical ; and he is the most 
free whose reason and whose volitions are the most 
invariable and uniform. 

But this is the point at which it becomes urgently 
needful to make a protest against the inveterate prac- 
tice of applying one and the same set of phrases to the 
most extreme instances — instances so extreme that the 
interval between them is immeasurably great. This 
source of confusion has had its rise in that controversial 
usage which has carried a subject belonging of right to 
the philosophy of human nature over to the side of 
abstract theology and of biblical interpretation. In this 



62 ESSAY I. 

way it has come about that phrases such as those which 
are repeated on every page of Edwards' Essay — " the 
determination of the will," — " the strongest motive 
swaying the will," — "the choice which on the whole 
approves itself to the reason," and some others, are left 
to lodge themselves in the reader's mind, who believes 
himself to be logically safe when he applies them — now, 
to the thousand-and-one instances of actions that are 
spontaneous, instantaneous, instinctive ; and now, to 
actions of the very highest quality, wherein faculties of 
reason and of feeling are combined in the production 
of a result which is a fit sample at once of liberty the 
loftiest, with determinations, or with infallibility the 
most absolute. 

Of such long standing are those confusions which 
have sprung from the interference of Logic with morals 
and Theology, on this ground, that the only way of 
escape seems to be that of passing over entirely from 
the region where religious feelings and sectarian beliefs 
bear sway, to a region which is wholly exempt from 
any such influences; we mean — the sphere of purely 
intellectual action. 

It is in this sphere that the human mind exercises 
and exhibits its powers with the most advantage, and it 
is here that it displays what are its proper forces. It is 
here that it gives evidence of its possessing a faculty of 
causation, enabling it to mark out for itself a path of 
discovery over the field of the material world. It is not 
that, on this field, the human mind is exempt from the in- 
fluence of motives^ or that it is in an impassive condition ; 
for the impulses which here bear upon it are of the 
most vivid kind; yet they are such as take a broad 
bearing, imparting force at large to the intellectual 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 63 



energies, while they leave individual volitions to take 
their rise witii absolute freedom. 

It is admitted, or it ought to be admitted, on all 
sides, that the ultimate or innermost fact in the mental 
structure is wholly inscrutable ; or that it stands on a 
level with tliose ultimate focts in physical philosophy 
which are held to lie hid beyond the reach of science: — 
these are the mysteries of the material world ; and as to 
the world of mind, we assume nothing more than this, 
that it also has its mysteries— facts which, though they 
are not to be questioned, are not to be spread out to 
view as if more were known concerning them than is or 
can be known. 

If so nmch as this be allowed, then our question is 
this, Whether, on the field of its intellectual activity, 
the human mind does not exercise its functions in a 
manner which demands an absolute distinction to be 
made between it, and any species of physical causation. 

All things occurring in the material world— all events 
that are properly phi/s leal— may be traced up, in the 
order of time, to events, or to a state of thhigs that is 
anterior to the moment of their occurrence. But is it 
true that in the same sense, or in any sense which is 
intelligible, all events in the world of mind are also to 
be traced upward, in the order of time, to events, or to 
a state of things that is anterior to themselves ? We 
heuo assume tlie negative, and affirm, on the contrary, 
the strictly initiative activity of mind, and affirm this to 
be the distinctive prerogative of the human mind. 

Those things that are anterior or antecedent to the 
state of the mind at any moment, or to any of its voli- 
tions, are such as these : there is the individual make, 
or, as we say, the idiosyncracy of the man— that which 



64 ESSAY I, 

from birth, and under the lengthened influences of 
education, and all circumstances put together, has 
brought him to be just what now he is, in faculty, habit, 
and jDower: — then we are to take into the account 
the now-present circle of influences that attract the 
senses, or that in any way bear upon, incite, stimulate, 
or depress the mind, either enhancing its powers, or 
producing an abatement of their energy. In a word, 
we have before us — the individual man, and the circum- 
stance ; and both, in respect of the next ensuing voli- 
tion, are antecedent to it ; that volition being taken to 
be, or it is spoken of as, the efi'ect of these two antece- 
dent causes, or clusters of causes. It may be, more- 
over, that when this volition is considered as an effect or 
result of the two, we fail to trace what is due to each, 
up from the product to its cause. 

But now let it be granted as possible, or as a case 
that is at least hypothetically admissible, that in the 
product there is found to be more — perhaps immensely 
more than we can, with any reason, attribute to either 
of the above-named antecedents. In the product there 
^5, what was not in the causes, either separately con- 
sidered, or considered in mass, or as the sum of the two. 
Instances of this very kind abound, and superabound in 
all departments of the physical sciences. The product 
is not only more than the sum, or than the multiple of 
the two above-named clusters of antecedents, but it is 
of a kind for which we must make search elsewhere than 
among those influences in respect of which the man is 
the creature of the conditions of his birth, education, 
and present circumstance. 

We now take an instance. — Tliat vast assemblage of 
conceptions and of beliefs which are embraced in the 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 65 



circle of the Moaeni Astronomy is an intellectual pro- 
duct—it is a result wliicli has come out of the modern 
mind, and which at this time holds a place in all in- 
structed minds into which it has entered by the ordi- 
nary methods of teaching. This modern astronomy may 
be, and it is, set forth and figured in books ; and it is 
symbolized in those elaborate mechanisms and instru- 
ments to which itself has given birth, and which are its 
tools and its aids. But now this scheme of the stellar and 
planetary universe which we assent to as, in the mam, 
true, and which we speak of Avithout hesitation as con- 
formable to the reality of things— this complex notion of 
magnitudes, distances, revolutions, perturbations— this 
GREAT IDEA of sphcrcs, and of orbits, and of velocities, 
ichence has it come, and hoio has it come, to fill the place 
which it actually occupies in the modern mind ? 

In answering this question we must not say, or ima- 
gine, that the modern theory of the universe has sug- 
gested itself to the human mind spontaneously, as if it 
were the obvious interpretation of what the eye is con- 
versant with in surveying the midnight heavens. It is 
not the visible meaning of the things that are seen ; for 
a supposition the very contrary of what is now known to 
be true in astronomy is that which the human mind has 
always spontaneously accepted. The diurnal movement 
of the celestial lamps from east to west has, in every age, 
been trusted and received as real, until Thought has labo- 
riously revised, and has rejected these primitive suppo- 
sitions. 

Nor has the modern astronomy sprung out of that 
current of images which is ever flowing through the 
mind, and in respect of which it, for the most part, exer- 
cises no control. The human mind has not dreamed the 



ESSAY 1 



astronomy which we now accept as true; it has not 
picked it up, as if it had floated down upon the medita- 
tive stream of unsouG^ht-for imas^es. 

But now has the modern theory of the universe, at 
length turned up in the evolution of an eternal series of 
chances? It is affirmed that the twenty-four or thirty 
letters of the alj^habet, if thrown incessantly during mil- 
lions of years, might come up in order, as a line of the 
Iliad ; and that the chances of some other millions of 
ages would give us Homer entire ! If then the universe 
itself may be the product of eternal chances, then why 
may not our modern notion of it have sprung also from 
the womb of eternity in the same manner? Who 
among us shall say he believes this ? 

We are now assuming that the modern astronomy ^5, 
substantially, true. Let it be imagined, then, that it has, 
at length, been spontaneously generated by the evolu- 
tion of certain Laws of Thought, which, as innate in the 
human mind, are the fixed and constant constituents of 
the rational nature. Be it so ; but these innate laws — 
the tendency of which is to bring the human mind into 
conformity with the nature of things in the world around 
us — these laws are themselves subject, as the history of 
philosophy shows, to countless and incalculable disturb- 
ing influences ; and if, as now, we are thinking of the 
evolution of fixed laws, and of nothing else, and if they 
are crossed and deflected by innumerable influences 
coming in upon them from all sides, then, and on that 
supposition, the probability of the coming up of a true 
ASTRONOMY, in the course of myriads of ages, is very 
little, if at all, better than it is on the preceding suppo- 
sition of its springing out of pure chance. 

But there is no need, it will be said, to have recourse 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 67 



to any oftlu'se extreme suppositions, and which nobody 
would profess to think admissible. That great scheme 
of the universe which we designate " the modern astro- 
nomy " has become what it is as the result of methods 
of reasonimr—complicated, refined, hypothetic often, as 
to its startinir-point, and nevertheless irresistibly conclu- 
sive It is the noble achievement of the human mmd, 
labourhio- on the same field-the visible heavens-age 
after age; often wandering lar from the right path, but 
at length arriving at a harmonious system which we 
may now safely accept as being conformable to the 
reality of things. . i, ^ i 

What this reasoning is— regarded as an intellectual 
operation- this is not the place to inquire; a strict 
analysis of it has been propounded by several recent 
writers. It is enough here to say that it implies, at each 
step, the following, or the accepting as true, a perceived 
agreement, or an accordance, whether in relation to 
quantities or qualities, or some supposed relationship of 
known causes and effects. 

But now, if the aggregate of all human reasonmgs 
could be brought under review, it would appear that m 
a very large— perhaps the larger— number of instances 
the agreement, or the accordance, which the mind at 
first accepted as true, was not so in fact— the appear- 
ances were fallacious. This probability of error is known 
to and it is always kept in view by well-trained minds. 
Consequent upon this knowledge of the fallaciousness 
of phenomena, and the uncertainty of even the best 
methods of hypothetic reasoning, and the necessity of 
submitting all conclusions to some test, or to many tests— 
if they can be brought forward— a habit is formed of 
supervision, and the practice is resorted to of excursive 



ESSAY I 



and conjectural advances, in this direction and in that- 
hunting, as we may say, for indications of error : hypo- 
theses the least likely to be true are invited, and are 
imagined, and are questioned, so as that we may em- 
brace every chance of detecting any mistaken step. 

In explication of this re visional process in philosophic 
reasoning— this highly-complicated method, which re- 
volves^ all things known, and all things imaginable— we 
may, if we please, affirm that some higher "law of 
thought" comes in to act as the guide of such specula- 
tions. And yet this second, or this more recondite law, 
will itself need another, which shall be still more inti- 
mate, and more recondite, and which shall give aid in 
the revision of its own operations. In a word, at every 
step of our advance on this path we shall find the need 
of another power, or of a principle, deeper and further: 
in, and therefore less explicable, than the preceding one. 
What it is which we need is that which we may as well 
acknowledge— at the very outset ; it is what we would 
not call "the self-determining power of the mind," be- 
cause this worn-out phrase has surrounded itself with " 
confusions; but it is that which, in whatever terms it 
may be spoken of, is the prerogative and the distinction 
of Mind, in the human species. It is that which, because 
It IS the ultimate fact in human nature, is not suscepti- 
ble of analysis, and must for ever defy our endeavours 
to set it forth in explicative propositions. 

Apart from a candid and a modest recognition of this 
ultimate fact in human nature, we find ourselves con- 
tending, ever and anew, and to little purpose, with some 
guise of atheistic or materialistic fatalism. The entire 
consciousness of the intellectual and moral nature, in 
every sound mind, repels and resents these monstrous 



LOGIC IN THEOLOGY. 69 

doctrines; nevertheless, so long as we admit, in con- 
structing our systems of abstract Theology, those prin- 
ciples of reasoning on which atheism takes its stand, we 
shall find no release from this warfare. 

It may be demanded that we should adduce some fla- 
grant instances of this pernicious interference of a wordy 
Logic with the principles of Christian Theology. The 
name of Jonathan Edwards has been prominent in these 
pages: — but now will the modern Christian reader of his 
Avorks wish to repeat the demand for instances of this 
kind to be thence drawn? In those works— up and 
down, passages occur at sight of which one stands 
aghast ; — the horror of a great darkness comes upon the 
soul, and it is not until long after reading them, and 
closing the book, that any degree of peace of mind is 
regained. This unfeignedly Christian man, from the 
peculiar structure of his mind, and from his training, had 
learned to abandon himself to the tyranny of a Avordy, 
demonstrative method. Come what might— let all prin- 
ciples and all intuitions of piety and moral feeling be out- 
raged, yet if the Logic be right— if each proposition 
hangs fast by the heels of the proposition which is its 
precursor,— if all be so, then a belief which is infinitely 
Avorse than the worst blasphemies of atheists is, Avitliout 
a doubt, to be taken to ourselves as true ! 

But has not every residue of this puritanic Theology 
long ago ceased to be thought of? The day Avill be 
bright when any such affirmation may be uttered Avith 
truth; for then we shall have learned to think of the 
Divine Nature — according to Scripture ; and Christian 
Theology shall at Icngtli speak peace to our troubled 
thoughts. 



ESSAY II. 

THE STATE OF UNITARIANISM I:N' ENGLAND. 
SECTION I. 

The fairness of an indirect argument may always be 
questioned. What we mean by an indirect argument 
is — the drawing an inference for or against any system 
of belief, or any polity or scheme of social organization, 
in a somewhat circuitous manner, from its manifest or 
its alleged consequences — its progress, its defeats, its 
fortunes^ among other and competing doctrines or 
practices. 

In some cases this mode of oblique reasoning may 
carry with it a conclusive and irresistible force, and may 
make good its claim as legitimate, in a logical sense, by 
the incontrovertible validity of the inference in which 
it terminates. 

An indirect or inferential argument in favour of any 
doctrine or system, derived from its rapid spread, and 
its actual hold of the popular mind, is always very pre- 
carious, and should be had recourse to only as accom- 
panied wdth a careful and a thoroughly honest considera- 
tion of all the circumstances of the case. 

An indirect argument, adverse to the pretensions of a 
particular system or polity, in like manner demands 
caution, and freedom from polemical eagerness, on the 
])art of those who urge it ; nevertheless circumstances 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 71 



may attach to a i)articular instance which remove all 
reasonable liesitation, wlien we are intending to bring 
it home to those to whom it may relate, as to the 
imsoundness of their distinctive principles. 

Might we, without offence, take, in illustration of 
what we are now saying, an instance in referring to 
which we profess — what indeed we feel — respect and 
affection for a highly estimable body of persons — the 
Quakers ? Let all the merits of the " Friends'' be fully 
granted, and let the large amount of their benevolent 
achievements be put down to their credit, and then we 
shall be troubled with no misgivings in affirming that 
Quakerism — such as it has existed in England these hun- 
dred years past, is a total mistake — it is not the Chris- 
tianity of the New Testament. To show why we think 
so would lead us away from our immediate purpose ; 
nor can an argument of this kind be urgently called for 
at a time when the rapid decrease of the body — its has- 
tening sublimation — seems to indicate a time near at hand 
when its last aged representatives shall have been lowered 
into their graves with obsequies significantly noiseless. 

In demur of an unfavourable indirect argument of this 
sort, such pleas as the following may be urged : — We 
may say, it is an evil world that we live in ; the very 
purest forms of truth are always the most vehemently 
rejected : it is, moreover, an evil time — a time in which 
blind prejudice, powerful corporations, secular influences, 
fashion, fanaticism, are just now in their hour of energy, 
and are too strong for us ; we do not — we cannot pros- 
per in the f^ice of forces so many and so potent. Indul- 
gence should be given to these, and to any other expla- 
nations which may be consolatory to the feelings of the 
chiefs of unprosperous bodies. But after duly listening 



72 ESSAY II. 

to them, we come round to our first assumption, that, in 
certain instances, the damaging inference which we 
intend to draw is valid, and is irresistibly conclusive. 

On the part of those who, after a long trial, have con- 
spicuously fiiiled to bring over to their views any large 
proportion of the religious community, this plea meets 
the ear oftener perhaps than any other: "That the 
times are unfavourable to liberty of thought; that 
a blind acquiescence in old errors, a reverence for anti- 
quated superstitions, is the predominant feeling with 
the religious." This plea, we think, is unavailing at this 
time; and it should long ago have ceased to be used. 
It is a plea inapplicable to the instance of the present 
state of Unitarianism in England. It may be alleged 
that in no instance can an inference drawn from what 
we have called \hQ fortunes of a religious community be 
accepted as of conclusive weight. We grant this ; and 
nevertheless return to our position that, in certain cases, 
a presumption, adverse to the merits of a doctrine or 
polity, may be so strong as to carry with it an over- 
whelming force. And we think this to be the case in 
the instance now before us. 

In taking a glance, as we propose to do, at the state 
of Unitarianism in England, Ave first step back a twenty 
years — dated from the present time ; and then, in a 
future essay, propose to bring our report, and its infer- 
ence, up to this present time, taking account of the 
changes which may have had place in that interval of 
years. 

The lapse of time, even of so short a space as twenty 
years, ought not to be left out of the reckoning when 
we have in view the actual, and the relative position of a 
community or a party, political or religious. Twenty 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 73 



years — or thirty — carries us over from the era of the 
fathers, in their maturity of thouglit and action, to the 
era of the sous — just at the moment when they are re- 
viewing the opinions of their predecessors, and are fore- 
casting tlieir own course in moving on to an advanced 
position. The exterior aspect of things may be much 
tlie same — or the same, if looked at hastily ; but as to 
the core of thouglit, as to the inner meaning of conven- 
tional phrases, an extensive substitution of one body of 
notions for another may have taken place. 

If then we ask leave to take account of twenty or 
thirty years as materially affecting the real condition of 
religious communities, with how much more reason 
should we take account of the lapse of centuries ! But 
just on this ground we have a cause of complaint. We 
have listened to mournful denunciations of the " intole- 
rance," the "blindness," the "stolid fanaticism" of this 
now-passing time, which seemed to carry us back a four 
hundred years. There must be an anachronism in any 
such wailings as these. It is not true that in England, 
at this time, a fair argument in behalf of great princi- 
ples has to encounter as much antagonism as it would 
have encountered in the times of the Tudors. 

Let us imagine ourselves to be living in the midst of 
the " dark ages," when the few enlightened men of that 
dreary time might bemoan themselves as having been 
born a thousand years too late, or a thousand years too 
soon. Let us listen at the closet-door of one of them, 
and hear him uttering a wail such as this : — " Why toil 
thus to explore the secrets of nature — the work of God, 
only to earn the disgrace of holding friendship with the 
devil ? Who and what are thy contemporaries ? they 
are either the victims of its sottish ignorance, or at once 

4 



74 ESSAY II, 

its victims and its interested patrons ! Where, unless it 
were in tlie midst of a wilderness, may reason safely 
ntter her voice ? Mankind is leagued against light, and 
counts every son of knoAvledge a deadly foe. Demon- 
stration is condemned as the foulest of heresies ! The 
laws of nature are blasphemy ! and to set forth the 
wisdom of the Creator, is to preach the doctrine of 
fiends! And the people hug the tyranny that holds 
them down : they love their thraldom, and are prompt 
to rend, limb from limb, the man who would disabuse 
their understandings ! Luckless man that I am ! born 
too soon or too late : either hide thyself in the grave, 
or hasten to join the multitude in paying homage to 
the sovereign folly that sits on high, mistress of the 
nations !" 

But from a dream such as this we awake. It is Sun- 
day morning, and, in compliance with wholesome usages, 
we direct our steps towards a place of worship, and 
enter the first that presents itself. The sombre exterior 
of the structure seems to ally itself to the glooms of the 
times from which we had just emerged ; nor was the 
interior out of harmony with the face of the edifice. 
Deep galleries protrude their bulk far upon the central 
space. The lower area is penfolded by pews, secretive 
in their intention, and such as seemed to typify that 
sectarism of the Christian community which has so long 
made the Church universal look so much more like a 
penitentiary than a royal banqueting-house. 

The congregation has assembled, but the service has 
not commenced. Dimness and comfortless solemnity 
reign within the sacred precincts ; and we might easily 
imagine that we had not indeed effected our return 
from the twelfth century. — The congregation has assem- 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 76 

bknl. So we must say, while we look from side to side 
of the aesolatioii, and descry here, and there agahi, a 
well-toiletted head, or tuft of feathers ! Such is this 
" holy convocation !" Yet we should not omit to men- 
tion a halt-dozen aged pensioners, and a score or two 
of liveried children, who claimed the ample spaces of the 
ijalleries as their undisputed domain. 
^ The minister ascends to his place ;— a spare, keen-eyed 
man, sedate in deportment, and sarcastic in look, and 
yet manifestly sad at heart ;— sad as a man of sense 
and feeling must be, whose lot it is to stand, year after 
year, in front of the perpetual sleet and frost of ill- 
success. He gazes for a moment upon the unvaried 
scene— for each of his wealthy patrons is in his place — 
and he looks as if in disgust of himself, of his vocation, 
of his congregation, of his times, and of all the world, 
and then announces the psalm. The prompter of 
psalmody, aided by a voice or two from the furthest 
corners of the place, performs the joyous anthem! 
Ai?ain the leader of worship rises, and reads, and prays ; 
while his hearers, like so many columns erect amid the 
ruins of Palmyra, indicate by their position that they 
are not altogether unmuidful of the specific service in 
which their minister is engaged. How might any one 
sigh for the unaffected fervour of a Turkish mosque ! 

The preacher takes his text, which, as it was not 
referred to hi the body of the discourse, has slipped 
from our recollection. The querulous, sardonic, dis- 
couraging harangue of half an hour, inspires the belief 
that the minister is preparing his hearers for the an- 
nouncement that the chapel doors would, from that day 
forward, be closed, and that no more fruitless attempts 
would be made to dissipate the obstinate darkness of 



76 ESSAY II. 

the age. Not so : but, instead of any such seemingly 
discreet resolution, the sanguine man, hoping against 
hope, concludes his discourse by declaring his conviction 
that some thousand years — perhaps fifteen hundred 
years hence — mankind, escaping at length from the 
infatuations of enthusiasm and fanaticism, Avill yield to 
the sway of right reason, and acknowledge the excel- 
lence of " j)rimitive Christianity ;" that is to say, on this 
proviso, that Christianity itself, which, perhaps, ought 
always to have been regarded as only a temporary dis- 
pensation, should, at that remote date, be deemed the 
fittest expression, or in any way a necessary conveyance 
of Eternal Truths ! 

But before the preacher has attained this heart-warm- 
ing climax, he complains heavily, and with a swell of 
indignant eloquence — slightly indicative, perhaps, of 
wounded pride — of the inveteracy of vulgar prejudices 
— the obdurate impenetrability of notions once held to 
be sacred — the crushing despotism of religious establish- 
ments, which, as he afiirms, leave no chance of success 
to truth and reason among the great body of the people ; 
while the sects that disclaim all such corrupting influ- 
ences are maddened by fanaticism. Things being in 
this woeful plight, what wonder is it that the few places 
in which the pure light of " pririiitive Christianity" still 
shines are scarcely at all frequented ? *' Such," said 
the preacher, willing to condole with his saddened flock, 
" such is the infelicity of being thrown upon a dark 
age ! an age, the glooms of which are rendered only 
the more sensibly dense by the flickering (and I fear 
expiring) taper of true knowledge, which we, my breth- 
ren, still hold out to our times. But let us remember 
that we are not alone upon the roll of those worthies 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 77 

wliose lot it lias been to contend vainly against obstinate 
and triumphant ignorance. We are placed, in our 
times, just as Roger Bacon was placed in his. Or, if 
you want illustrious examples of this sort, think of the 
oreat Albert— think of Copernicus— think of Galileo! 
Heroic men ! they, as we, maintained in that, their dark 
day, sublime truths, which the world, besotted then as 
now, would not receive, though demonstrably certain." 
Nor does the preacher, whatever bright hopes he may 
entertain of a millennium of truth at the end of another 
millennium of error, promise to his hearers any speedy 
change for the better. " The zealous efforts of the friends 
o^iyrimitive Christianity," said he, " to disseminate their 
opinions on an extended scale, had proved almost an 
entire fiilure. At home the congregations of apostolic 
Christians had, in ninety-eight instances out of every 
hundred, dwindled down to a state of deplorable desola- 
tion ; and as to its progress abroad, the spirit of the 
primitive doctrine had shown itself to be not exjxmsive : 
it was not a missioncmj spirit ; it won no way among 
the mass of the people ; and every attempt to give it cir- 
culation, after struggling into existence, did but struggle 
to exist." 

We caught, from the tones of this comfortless harangue, 
an infection of despondency. The gloom of the build- 
ing, its desolation echoing the plaints of the preacher, 
oppressed the imagination; and we expected that, 
on issuing from this dungeon of despair, we should 
behold the heavens overcast with blackness — that the 
midsummer's noon would be stained, as by sympathy, 
with the moral and intellectual " darkness of the age." 
We expected to meet, at the first turning, some proces- 
sion of monks, or a band of heretics on their way to the 



78 ESSAY II. 

fire. In a word, we thought of nothing, as we passed 
the untrod threshold of this Unitarian Apostolic meet- 
ing-honse, but to see the blood-stained banner of super- 
stition floating far and wide upon the murky sky ! 

But how cheering is the reality that wakens us from 
this dismal dream as we gain the street ! At the very 
moment, twenty churches and chapels of the neighbour- 
hood are disgorging their crowds. Sunday dresses and 
Sunday faces, illuminated by a Sunday summer sky, give 
to the scene the liveliness and grace that so well befit 
Christianity where Christianity is free, intelligent, and 
sincere. ' Most of the faces we encounter bear that ex- 
pression of independence which is peculiarly English ; 
very few dis^^lay that sort of timid, crabbed, cruel dejec- 
tion which characterizes an age of fimaticism or of super- 
stition. And as the crowd is thinning we meet several 
of the ministers of the congregations that have just 
dispersed, and they are men whom we recognize as 
standing in the front of whatever is free, beneficent, out- 
spoken: they are men, some of them erudite, most of 
them laborious in their spheres ; and of whom, scarcely 
two, are highly paid for their services. 

Surely we may infer that our preacher of " primitive 
apostolic Christianity" has calumniated his times, and is 
himself, if not a cynic, a disappointed man : forsooth, just 
because neither the irreligious of this time nor the reli- 
gious can be brought to listen to his doctrine — just 
because he, being himself in the wrong, must give some 
colour of reason to his comfortless condition, he misrepre- 
sents the age in which he lives, and dares to attribute to 
the ignorance, the obstinate fanaticism, and the interested 
superstition of the people of England in the nineteenth 
century, a failure which, in simple fact, is nothing but 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 79 



llio natural and tlie inevitable consequence of a fond 
attempt to upliold a long ago refuted argument. The 
complaint of the thoughtful, but persecuted man of the 
twelfth century awakened the sympathy which is due to 
greatness unblessed. The moans of this deserted preacher 
kindle the ])ity which is all that can be bestowed upon 
sincere but luckless infatuation. 

It is not easy to imagine an occasion that more signally 
tries the qualities of a man, or an occasion on which he 
may better establish his claim to the character of a phi- 
losopher (taking the term in its very highest and best 
sense) than when, as an adv^ocate of unpopular opinions, 
lie is called upon to give a reason for the failure of his 
zealous endeavours to propagate them. A man who can 
explain his own discomfiture without egotism or petu- 
lance, and without misstatement of facts, and without 
supercilious vituperations of the "vulgar," may fairly 
challenge an elevation of soul which perhaps distinguishes 
scarcely three individuals in a century. Placed in a 
position such as we are here supposing, an inferior mind 
betrays, in one manner or in another, its ignoble quality ; 
nor will it rest until it has revenged its defeats by slan- 
ders ; nor be satisfied even then. 

But how admirable were that greatness of mind which 
should lead one who has conspicuously failed in his 
endeavours to propagate certain opinions, to confess that 
the circumstances and the reasons of his disappointment 
have been such as to imply, almost demonstrably, the 
unsoundness of his argument — yes — that he has been 
mistaken ! 

Would that the state of Christianity in England were 
brighter and better than it is ! that the great mass of the 
people were habitual frequenters of churches and chajjels! 



80 ESSAY II, 

that in all churches and chapels the principal doctrines of 
the Reformation were plainly and zealously preached! 
Heartily may we wish that " all bishops and curates, and 
all congregations committed to their charge," exhibited, 
in their lives and conversation, unquestionable proofs of 
their receiving largely " the healthful spirit of grace." 
But if things are not altogether as we would have them 
be, dare we attribute the irreligion of the times to the 
presence of any argumentative obstructions or disadvan- 
tages which crush the spirit of free inquiry, or deprive 
truth of a fair hearing ? Who is it that dares to say, or 
to insinuate, that priestly power so sways and so enthrals 
the popular mind that the advocates of reason are cowed, 
browbeaten, and intimidated? Dare we affirm that 
genuine Christianity does not spread through the land, be- 
cause its preachers are driven from the field by the hoot- 
ings of endowed error ? Such things must not be said, 
for they are contrary to plain and conspicuous facts. 
There has never been a fifty years in which — there has 
never been a people among whom — a sound argument 
has had a better chance of making head against old errors 
than during the last fifty years, and among the people of 
England within that time. Nay, during the last fifty 
years, at several moments, the popular feeling in England 
has broken with so stormy a force against all ancient 
and prescriptive opinions, tliat whoever came forward to 
impugn them found, in every market-place, a people 
prepared to apj^laud and to devour his most daring 
sophistries. It is indeed true that earthly passiotis and 
worldly interests now, as ever, indispose the mass of 
mankind to entertain religious truths, and so to render 
the religious, as compared with the irreligious, a small 
minority; but it is not true that the temper of the timea 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 81 

— specifically, or that political institutions, stand in the 
way of any one theological system, as compared with 
others. Piety is indeed overpowered by worldlincss of 
spirit and sensuality ; but neither Unitarianism nor any 
other peculiar doctrine is specially disadvantaged in its 
struggle to hold a place among the crowd of religious 
opinions. 

On the contrary, Unitarianism has had its ausiDicious 
moments — it has had its sunny days. Once and again it 
has seemed to be just spreading its canvas to the gale, 
upon a flood-tide of opportunity. If there had been in 
Unitarianism the vigour of prosperous life, it might, nay, 
it must have lived and prospered at some time during 
the last half century.* And if, once and again, it has 
lapsed and has slunk away from the high road of success, 
no other intelligible account of the fact can be given 
than this — that intrinsically it is a doctrine of desolation 
and decay. 

What is it, then, that must be confessed concerning 
the " primitive apostolic Christianity" which is now 
preached in Unitarian meeting-houses ? Alas ! this doc- 
trine, which, if indeed it be the Christianity of the 
Apostles, had then power to conquer all the gods, and to 
set foot upon the throne of universal empire ; now, 
when it is learnedly and zealously propounded to the 
most intelligent, the most free, and the most religious 
people in the world, i)roves itself to be — what none will 
listen to — a theory which the poor turn from in con- 
tempt! — a doctrine that inspires its converts with no 
zeal ! — a system that can neither walk, nor run, nor 
stand among competitors! — a belief that scatters, not 
gathers ; that desolates, not blesses ! — a phantom of 
* From 1780 to 1830. 
-1* 



82 ESSAY II. 

silence, gloom, emptiness, coldness, despondency !• This 
is the primitive apostolical Christianity of Unitarianism ; 
and it is so by the confession of its advocates.* 



SECTION II. 

The entire number of places of vrorship (endowed 
and licensed) in England, might be classified in some 
such manner as the following:— that is to say, we might 
take, as the ground of a distinction, the degree in which 
they are ordmarily filled. The purpose of our argument 
will be sufficiently answered by a fourfold division. 
Following, then, this rule, the first class comprehends 
the crowded ; the second^ the fairly filled ; the third, 
the moderately filled; and the foxirth^ those that, from 
Sunday to Sunday, round the year, challenge" to them- 
selves, in a pre-eminent degree, the solemnity which 
waits upon desolation; or, in other words, such as are 
occupied by the parson, the clerk, the pew-oiDcner, and 
five, seven, fourteen, or twenty resolute folks, who have 
vowed that nothing, while life and limb are spared, shall 
drive them from the venerable walls. 

As to places of the first class — the crowded — we might 
exclude them from consideration on the present occasion, 
as anomalous instances, it being fairly presumable, and 
it is found to be so in fact, that such cases of extraordi- 
nary repletion result from special causes, such as the 
peculiar attractions of the preacher, his genius, his fer- 
vour, or perhaps his fertile talent in devising paradoxes. 
Here and there also, local circumstances, fine music, or 

* Passages confirmatory of what is affirmed iu this Ess:iy have been 
drawn from authentic Unitarian pubHcations. 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 83 



mere fashion, crams a place of worship. Be it as it may, 
it wouKl not be safe to draw general inferences from 
such instances. The second class, or the well-filled, may 
(with a few exceptions easily acconnted for) be consi- 
dered as so distinguished because the religious instruc- 
tion which is obtained in them is of a sort that approves 
itself to' the consciences of men as somid, efficient, and 
salutary. To this order belong most of those churches 
of the Establishment wlierein the doctrines of its found- 
ers are preached in an able and acceptable manner. It 
includes also a fair proportion (perhaps a majority) of 
all Dissenting meeting-houses and chapels in populous 
neighbourhoods, in which the same doctrines (the doc- 
trines of the Reformation) are maintained by men of 
good education, good character, and respectable pulpit 
talents. We come then to the third, and perhaps the 
most numerous class, namely, the moderately, or half- 
filled ; they are neither desolated nor flourishing. More 
seats are claimed or let in them than are occupied. Of 
this sort are, first, a proportion of parish churches 
throughout the land, in rural districts, whereunto resort, 
every Sunday (bad weather excepted) the sober folk of 
the parish, who would do what they do, though the par- 
son would preach Islamisni, and perhaps be little the 
wiser, and not much the worse if he did. Secondly, under 
this general head are to be reckoned some number, we 
fear, of orthodox dissenting places, in towns and out of 
them, and which contain a very shnilar genus of " good 
sort of folks," better taught, perhaps, in Christianity 
than some of their neighbours of the Establishment, and 
decided foes of all " rites and forms of worship which 
are of man's devising," but not much more vivacious 
either in their intellectual or their moral life tlian other 



84 ESSAY II, 

people. Where such half-filled dissenting places are 
surrounded with a dense population, we would under- 
take to assign, instantly, the conspicuous and unques- 
tionable cause of so lamentable a waste of pew room. 

Last come the empty. It is no hull to call a thing 
empty ^ whether it be box, vase, house, purse, church, or 
chapel, which is not found to contain what one reasona- 
bly expects to see within it, even though there be not 
an absolute vacuum. In this sense, an empty place of 
worship is one in which, though there is some dozen of 
men, women and children, there is no congregation. 
Instances of very dissimilar sorts come under this head ; 
as first, a few parish churches, the ofiiciating minister in 
which, either by his bad reputation, or his inefiiciency as 
a teacher, secures for his own voice and his clerks all the 
advantages of solemn echo from bare walls. But to 
whom among the sectarists belong these deserted cha- 
pels ? We are prepared to afiirm, that an exceedingly 
small number can be claimed by the orthodox dissenters 
of any denomination. Here and there, indeed, some 
pitiable drone, barricadoed in his pulpit by " the endow- 
ment," and protected from public opinion by his utter 
obscurity, "keeps the doors" of an ancient meeting- 
house " open" (to use a technical, and a very significant 
phrase) by his somnific inanities ; and, perhaps, on some 
crowded highway, where a multitude of souls might 
have been saved, he holds up, weekly, the glorious gos- 
pel on a stage, for the scofi" of each Sunday straggler ! 
Instances of this sort among the orthodox dissenters 
are, we say, extremely rare. Who then claims the 
remainder ? It is ITnitarianism. And in what propor- 
tion ? In the proportion of ninety out of every hundred 
of all its places of worship. 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 85 

We must dilate a while upon this fact, and again 
recur to our classilication. If we err in particulars we 
shall willingly receive correction, and yet even in that 
ca<e we need acknowledge no detriment ti) our argu- 
ment. We believe, then, that English Unitarianism has 
scarcely a place that is ordinarily crowded^ or over-filled. 
Assuredly it has not five such places ; and we do not 
hesitate to say, that nothmg can be more improbable 
than that a preacher of this class should excite that sort 
of intense feeling which could attract a throng. A very 
clever man, or a learned one, or a man of eminent 
perspicacity, or of fine taste, may adopt the Unitarian 
creed ; but how rarely shall we find among its advocates 
a powerful and well-proportioned intellect, vivified by 
glowing sensibilities, and rife with the soul of eloquence? 
Unitarianism, by its repressive property, is forbidden to 
become attractive to a promiscuous multitude. 

Three or four (we doubt if there be five) Unitarian 
chapels in England are well filled, although not crowded. 
But in these few instances all the Unitariaiiism of one 
side of the metropolis, or of a populous manufacturing 
town, is brought together, and makes indeed a fair show, 
if only it be thought of apart from the space whence it 
has been gathered. 

It is a remarkable fact, that the system of doctrine 
of which we ai-e speaking seems not to be susceptible 
of any middle state of prosperity. Unitarian places of 
worship are either the three or four, or possibly the five, 
well-filled chapels in London, Birmingham, Liverpool; 
or they are the three or four hundred dungeons of 
desolation which are found elsewhere. Where, in towns 
of the second and third-rate size, are the edifices that 
bring together, on a Sunday, a fair propoition of the 



86 ESSAY II. 

several orders, namely, the opulent, the trading, and 
the poor, to listen to Unitarian doctrine ? Hardly will 
any such instances be met with. Unitarianism exists 
either by collecting scattered individuals from large 
circles ; or purely by aid of endowments, where a 
congregation has long ceased to be thought of. So 
much for our third class. 

Nothing can be more significant than the facts that 
present themselves in turning to the fourth class, or the 
empty. No sect at all approximates to the proportion 
which the empty chapels of the Unitarians bear to the 
entire number. To say that, of a thousand parish 
churches taken indiscriminately in town and country, 
one hundred and twenty-five, or one-eighth, are graced 
with the chilly grandeur of vacuity, is, we think, allow- 
ing a too large number. We doubt if the Methodists, 
either Wesleyan or Calvinistic, have three empty chapels 
in a hundred ; the Baptists may perhaps claim five or 
ten in the same number ; the Independents three or 
four ; the Quakers fifty, or more. But by their own 
statements, ninety-eight Unitarian chapels in every hun- 
dred are desolate. Yet, as our argument is of a general 
kind, and is quite independent of nice calculations, we 
are willing to suppose that ten in a hundred own a con- 
gregation ; nay, let it be twenty ; let it be said that not 
more than four-fifths of the Unitarian pew-ground is a 
desert. Here then we might stop. We should be con- 
tent to leave the inference to every man's common sense. 
Most assuredly, were we Unitarians, we should accept 
the fact, under the circumstances which belong to it, as 
a sufficient proof of the badness, or, if not so, at least 
of the hopelessness of the cause. If Unitarian chapels 
are empty, it is not because " this is an age of darkness 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 87 



and ihnatifisni," it is not because Unitarians are liable 
to iniprisonnu'nts, coniiseations, tines; but it is for the 
simple and the satistactory reason that, with the Bible 
on the pulpit cushion, it fails to make good its preten- 
sions—the mass of the people being judges. 

It is useless to tlinch from so consi)icuous an inference. 
Christianity has, indeed, often been crushed, or been 
beaten out of a country by force of arms, and cruel 
persecutions ; or it has expired amid the general decay 
of learning, or in the absence of political security, or in 
the decline of national life. We mourn in such cases 
this extinction of the Uving power, yet we cannot 
marvel. But what ought we to think, and what are the 
appalling surmises which must come in upon the heart, 
if it should appear that Christianity, in its pure and its 
primitive form— Christianity, which was announced as 
a blessing to the poor, and to the multitude — yet, when 
it is proclaimed among an enlightened people, in an age 
of freedom and of intellectual activity, can gain no 
hearing ? What if we see that this " Apostolic doc- 
trine," entering upon a congregation Avhich had been 
fairly taken from all ranks, presently scatters it— retain- 
ing notliing of the good things upon which it laid its 
hand, excepting the endowments, and the desolated 
walls ? xVnd what if these things take place again, and 
again, and yet again ? Is there no significance in facts 
such "as these ? 

But now, in proof and illustration of our allegations, 

we must bring together a number of admissions which 

we find scattered through several numbers of a work 

that is the recognized organ of this Denomination.* 

'' Our chapels are but thinly attended, and our interest 

* The Monthly Repository for the time to which tliis Essay relates 



ESSAY II. 

but slow in progress. Perhaps, if we advert to the in- 
crease of population in these kingdoms, we must not 
speak of progress, but of retrogradation." 

"From the efforts of missionaries," saj^s the writer, 
"let us turn to the actual condition of our congregations. 
These we may divide into two classes, the ancient and 
the modern : those we have received from our prede- 
cessors, and those created by the present generation. Of 
many of both classes the tale is brief and mournful. 
There are a few of the old chapels, situated in large and 
flourishing towns, in which congregations worship, re- 
spectable both as to numbers and character. From the 
narrow sphere of the Unitarian view, however, these are 
greatly overrated. Everything is small or great by com- 
parison. To a child, a house of six rooms is a mansion ; 
to Unitarians, a Bristol or a Manchester audience is mag- 
nificent ! But let these half dozen flourishing congrega- 
tions be deemed of as highly as we will, still six pros- 
perous societies out of some three hundred is a small 
proportion. We do not mean to intimate that all the 
rest are dying or dead — far from it. There is a large 
middle class which supports a healthy appearance ; but 
many of the old chapels among us are*in a pitiable state. 
Of our own knowledge, we can speak of some scores that 
scarcely show signs of life. The numbei- of hearers in 
them will not average more than thirty^ the salary of 
the minister not more than seventy pounds per annum. 
Few beings are more to be pitied than a Unitarian minis- 
ter, placed in one of these societies. A man of educa- 
tion, with the miserable pittance of some seventy pounds 
per year, which, with much toil and solicitude, he may 
perhaps, but not in all cases, raise to a bare hundred. 
With this he lias a wife and children to support, and a 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 89 

decent appearance to maintain. Nor is this insignificant 
sum to be obtained without sundry and constant vexa- 
tions from trustee influence and trustee domination. If 
animated by a laudable wish to extend the boundaries 
of liis pasture, the minister is encountered by coldness 
and opposition. The poor who attend his services would 
gladly lend their countenance and aid ; but the great 
man, who is also the keeper of the purse, frowns the 
intention down. On other occasions, the minister is 
checked in his purposes for want of pecuniary assistance, 
or by the engagements and vexations of a school. There 
are many, very many of our ministers in this condition. 
Men of talent, education, and lofty moral feeling, are 
suffering for the cause of truth, and, by reason of others' 
unfaithfulness, in remote villages and declining towns, 
suffering in a way and to an extent that nothing but 
moral strength and tlie force of principle could enable 
them to sustain. Imagine these men placed in situations 
fitting to call out their powers, to fan the flame of their 
piety and zeal, to reward with a competency their 
labours, and how difterent would be their condition and 
their characters! In the actual case, however, how 
much of moral i)ower is thrown away ! how^ much of 
intellectual excellence is lost ! and for what ! To re-enact 
the story told in Mr. Wright's narrative of his mission- 
ary life and labours — to conduct in decency a few sexa- 
genarians to the grave, and then to close the doors ! Let 
us not be supposed to jest with the subject ; it is too 
serious, and too true, to admit of a smile. If this is not 
the probable end of no few of the old Presbyterian 
chapels, we are yet to learn what other flite they can in 
all probability undergo. The question, then, is easily 
solved, whether or not it is worth while to sacrifice some 



90 



ESSAY II. 



of the excellent of the earth to such an object? Can 
such a consummation be avoided? Not in the actual 
state of things. But if the Unitarian body would rise to 
a sense of its duties, and to a manly advocacy of the 
cause of truth, the most desirable change might be 
effected : but of this more anon 

"Equally grieved are we when we contemi^late the 
condition of the congregations which have been raised 
within the last fifteen years. Many chapels have been 
built ; how few are adequately attended ! If it were not 
an invidious task, we could estabhsh this assertion by 
the mention of actual instances. Doubtless there are 
some of our young societies that promise to survive, a 
few that flourish, but many of them are struggling hard 
for existence. In nearly all of them the minister is in a 
condition little better than those are who are attached 
to the former class. From what has been said, it is evi- 
dent that the cause of Unitarianism in these kingdoms, 
as far as its condition may be estimated by the numbers 
who constitute its congregations, is by no means in a 
satisfactory state. 

" We dare not hope that the kingdom of Christ is 
advancing under our auspices. The world around us is 
lying in wickedness. The home of the majority of our 
readers is surrounded by many who are in the gall of 
bitterness, being enslaved by sin ; and what healing 
stream have we recently set to flow, what light have we 
kindled to cleanse and illume our suffering fellow-men ? 
Our neighbourhoods are incessantly increasing; the 
young swarm around us on every side ; those of riper 
years arise in crowds. Where is there, on our part, an 
increase of exeition, an augmentation of moral energy, 
to meet the growing demand ? Alas ! the general eflfect 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 91 

of the tliickenino- of tlio population is to hide from pub- 
He view the teuipk's devoted to our worship, to hide our 
caudle uuder a bushel, aud to restrict the moral intlu- 
cnee which we exert. How long will these things be ? 
Have we arrived at tlie lowest point of depression ? May 
a change for the better be expected? All things, we 
iterate, are in our possession, requisite to exert a most 
healimr and efticieut influence on our fellow-men, all but 
the great mover, the life and soul of action — the will." 

Not a word of comment needs be subjoined to these 
quotations ; we leave the inference to every man's good 
sense, and pursue our intention a page or two further. 



SECTION III. 

Far should we be from intending to insult the un- 
happy ! Nevertheless, we must say something of a case 
which appears to be singularly undesirable, whether it 
be regarded in a secular or in a spiritual light — we mean 
that of more than four-fifths of all the preachers of Uni- 
tarianism in England at the present time. 

In spite of pride, in spite of reason, in spite either of 
abstract principles or of internal satisfactions, every man 
(or all but madmen and cnithusiasts) esteems his own 
position in society very much as he perceives it to be 
esteemed by those around him. To some extent, a man 
is happy who is thought to be so, and wretched if he 
knows that the world pities or condemns him. If this 
be not a universal truth, it is a general one. Now it is 
granted that a faithful Christian minister, the servant of 
God in an evil world, is called, at times, and in peculiar 
situations, to bear up against the general contumely of 



mankind, and is compelled to recollect the real dignity, 
and the high importance, and the futm-e honours of his 
office, in order to support himself under the scorn of a 
licentious or of a gainsaying world. Something of this 
sort may happen even in our own enlightened and reli- 
gionized country. Much more does it happen to the 
Christian missionary, as he urges his discouraged steps 
daily through the crowded ways of an idolatrous city! 
But m such instances a wise and good man, although, as 
a man, he feels oppressively the weight of the circum- 
ambient scorn of his fellows, nevertheless readily turns 
to considerations which sustain his courage. He recol- 
lects, for example, the immense and conspicuous supe- 
riority of the religion he bears with him over that which 
he impugns. Then his thoughts fly homeward, and he 
remembers that the doctrine which is scorned by the 
men of India is honoured by the men of England ; or his 
meditations carry him back to the ages of the primitive 
triumphs of the Gospel, or forward to the millennium of 
its universal ascendancy. Thus he rebuts contempt by 
aid of reason and of faith. 

We are willing to grant that, unless he can bring 
home to his heart, often, and without question, a large 
measure of such meditative comfort, a Christian minister 
who stands, from youth to age, in the centre of a circle 
of desolation, is one whom we should deem especially 
miserable. In how great a degree the deserted Unita- 
rian preacher (and such are, as it appears, eighty, or 
more, m every hundred) may sustain his fortitude by 
abstract meditations, or by distant hopes, is a question 
we shall not attempt to solve; but, instead of this, we 
shaU examine a little more closely his actual position 
And first, for its most palpable item— his pecuniary 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 93 

remuneration.* That his income is small, and that it is 
incapable of much augmentation, he does not complain 
of, for this is a disadvantage which he saw distinctly bi^- 
fore him when he devoted himself to the ministerial call- 
ing, and which he shares with too many of the clergy 
of all denominations, of whom, perhaps, a majority are 
very inadequately recompensed for their services; but 
there are peculiar circumstances attaching to his salary 
which must make him who receives it feel himself humi- 
liated in existing on such terms. Not like the poor 
curate, or the incumbent, who receives a sum which the 
law gives him, and who, so long as he discliarges cer- 
tain duties, is as well and truly entitled to his tithe or 
his stipend as the squire is to his rents ; nor like the 
poor Dissentuig minister among the orthodox sects, who 
subsists, though hardly, indeed, upon the free-will oflfer- 
ings of a needy flock, cheerfully rendered to the man of 
their hearts ; not so ; for the pittance on which the chil- 
dren of the Unitarian minister so barely live has been 
obtained for him — must we not say it, wrongfully ? — his 
income, or three-fourths of it, is derived from the i)er- 
version of a testamentary grant. Fifteen shillings in 
every twenty must burn his palm as he takes them, if he 
be a man of keen sensibility. The thirty, sixty, hundred 
pounds per annxim^ which, if it be not the whole of his 
salary, is that on which his continuance in his place abso- 
lutely depends, had been destined, by the puritanic 
donor, for the maintenance of a doctrine which the man 
who receives it is always labouring to impugn. Sad posi- 
tion ! hard service! The minister who stands in a pul- 
pit under such conditions might well, as he glances at 
the tablet dedicated to the memory of the munificent 

♦Written in 1830. 



94 ESSAY II. 

dead, imagine that he hears the "stone out of the wall" 
littering the reproachful taunt, " He who eateth of my 
liread hath lifted up his heel against me !" 

But we will suppose only (and it is far below the 
average of instances) that not more than one-third of the 
Unitarian minister's salary proceeds from a perverted 
endowment : whence come the two-thirds ? Not, as we 
have said, from the collected pence or shillings of four 
or five hundred hearers, who, in sparing so much, spare 
their utmost, but from seven or eight, or a dozen, deep 
and grudging purses, upon the brims of which a covet- 
ousness is written that utterly condemns the Christianity 
of the holders. Six or eight handsome equipages con- 
vey weekly the supporters of the chapel to its doors, but 
each sets down a grudging contributor to their minister's 
income. Unhappy man, who pines upon a hundred 
pounds, in part wrested from the insulted dead, in part 
wrung from the reluctant living ! 

We hardly need adduce specific evidence in support 
of these assertions. Nevertheless, the instances being 
universally known, we do no wrong in bringing forward 
a passage or two from authentic sources, which bear 
upon this point. A Unitarian writer, after affirming 
that " Unitarians are, for their numbers, the richest body 
of religionists in the kingdom, and contribute least to 
religious objects," goes on to say that — 

"The full evidence of this assertion is not adduced till 
it be stated, that perhaps one-half of the insignificant 
stipends paid to their ministers proceeds from the cha- 
rity of preceding ages. We do not, we think, over- 
estimate the amount of endowments in possession of 
Unitarian trustees. In many instances the lohole of the 
salary proc3Gds from endowments; and though the 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 95 



minister is obliged to unite t\vo ariluous })rofessions in 
order to find the means of a humble subsistence, or, 
where a school is not attainable, is obliged to live on the 
very edge of poverty, and, though there is one or more 
persons in his flock of ample and superfluous means, yet 
the utmost that is done by voluntary contributions is the 
raising enough to defray the expenses of opening and 
cleaning the chapel ; and we have known instances in 
which any extraordinary outlay, arising from repairs or 
the delivery of lectui-es, has been subtracted, either 
wholly or in part, from the minister's pittance. In other 
cases not the whole, but a part — generally the chief part 
of the tiny sum received by the minister — proceeds from 
endowments. A few instances there are in which no 
endowment is possessed ; and we declare it as our con- 
viction, that the societies where this is the case are in 
general the most flourishing. And now then, we freely 
and heartily say, that we wish that all the endowments 
possessed by our body were irretrievably sunk to the 
bottom of the ocean. Other denominations, poorer than 
we a hundred-fold, have them not, and flourish : we have 
them, and we languish. They have been, they are an 
incubus to our cause, and the orthodox could not do us 
a iireater service than to wrest them from our hands." 



SECTIOX IV. 

But we turn to the other side of the Unitarian minis- 
ter's position. Amid his pecuniary humiliations, can he 
solace himself in contemplating the success of his sin- 
ritual labours? Can he derive, from the manifest effi- 
ciency of his ministrations, a consolation which recon- 



96 ESSAY II. 

ciles him to his melancholy lot ? He, and he alone, upon 
the supposition of the truth of the Unitarian system, 
holds in his hand that potent engine which, a while ago, 
overthrew temples and ascended thrones, and vanquished 
the nations. What does it achieve in his hands ? "We 
put this question to his candour. These are not the days 
of mystification — these are not the days in which a man 
may hide facts from himself and from others by vague 
and unmeaning declamation. We ask, then, the Uni- 
tarian minister to tell us, and let him tell us as if he were 
giving evidence before a dozen j^lain men, what does he 
see, within his particular sphere, of the power of the 
Gospel ? Let him answer, first, in reference to the num- 
bers- whom he statedly addresses, and then as to the 
apparent benefit which is derived from his instructions 
by those that hear him. 

Or, if an mference from single instances be disliked, 
let us look at Unitarianism (this only genuine Chris- 
tianity) as it stands in the country at large, and viewed 
as an instrument of national virtue. We ask aloud. Is 
Unitarianism, with all its chapels, worth, to the people 
of England, as an actual means of effecting a general 
reformation of manners — is it worth the revenues of the 
poorest of our bishoprics ? Is it worth the salaries of a 
score of excisemen? Nay, tell us plainly, is it worth 
anything ? If all the Unitarian chapels in England were 
let to-morrow for penitentiaries or for warehouses, would 
the aggregate virtue of the English peoj)le exhibit, in 
the following year, any appreciable deterioration ? In 
deed, we think not. 

How cheerless, then, and how comfortless, are the 
endeavours of each single labourer, when the worth of 
the aggregate labour of all is too diminutive a thing to 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 97 



be measured or reckoned ! How deplorable is the lot 
of a man who not only is unsuccessful in his particular 
sphere, but who, on looking round among his colleagues, 
far and near, sees ninety of them, out of every hundred, 
in the same dismal predicament — hopelessly unsuccessful ! 
How sliall lie defend his bosom against the inroad of the 
most Ik art -sickening of all convictions that can smite 
the human breast — the conviction of toiling through life 
fruitlessly ? 

This thriftless labourer meets in society those with 
whom he set out on the course of life ; each is alert (if 
not nil successful) in the pursuit of interests the promo- 
tion of which, though private, is the promotion of the 
commonwealth and general prosperity ; but he, although 
not less well-educated than they — more so, probably — 
not less intelligent, not less capable of achieving success 
by energy and talent — he, although perhaps possessing 
an advantage over his fellows in some of these respects, 
yet floats for ever upon a stagnant pool, in the waters 
of which nothing moves— over the surface of which not 
a living thing will flit ! They — the companions of his 
boyhood, are ploughing, sowing, and reaj^ing ; he is ever 
sowing — sowing sterile sands, that are watered only 
with briny tears of despair ! Once in the round of seven 
days he bends his steps, heartfallen and sick of the pro- 
fitless usages of devotion, to his chapel. No glistening 
eyes of the poor and afflicted, whose hearts he is to cheer, 
watch his approach ; no joyous sounds of cordial uni- 
versal worship are to greet his ear. The few are in their 
wonted places. Would he were left to indulge his me- 
lancholy musings in solitude ! He delivers the appointed 
couplets of " adoration ;" of the few worshippers, a few 
only respond. He reads the Scriptures; but of these 

5 



ESSAY II. 

one verse in every five shocks his fastidious taste, or asks 
a crooked criticism, to turn aside the edge of its obvious 
meaning. He prays : yes, he prays ; but who is it that 
joins him? Do not the more knowing of his flock in- 
wardly disallow the solemn impertinence which assumes 
that there is any efficacy in prayer ? None but the sim- 
ple believe in it. He preaches : he utters— so he says— 
the soul-wakening doctrine of immortality, stripped 
of every corruption, and therefore, by necessary con- 
sequence, potent to reform the profligate, and to spiri- 
tualize the earthly-minded ! Preacher ! show to the 
world the roll of your actual triumphs! The week's 
work is done, the congregation is dismissed, and the 
functionary returns to his home ; and, as ^ public person, 
he feels himself an insulated being. Laden with care, he 
is a sinecurist, unconnected with the multitude of men 
either by relationship of secular utility, or by the bond 
of spiritual sympathy, or by the part he takes in any 
efficient labours of Christian beneficence. 

"The Unitarian" — Ave quote an authority — "is an 
insulated being. He stands apart from the rest of his 
fellow Christians. If he has society out of his own con- 
nection, he must seek it with those who believe less, not 
more than himself: if he wishes to be friendly with the 
orthodox, he is looked upon with distance : if to join in 
their benevolent plans, with avoidance : if to rectify their 
errors, with horror. He can find his way neither, to 
their head nor their heart. The public services of his 
temple they avoid, as they would a lazar-house. He is 
cabined, cribbed, and confined on all sides: his days 
are spent in inaction, and his charities are narrowed by 
reason of restraint. He is a stranger in a strange land, 
having a peculiar language, a peculiar spirit, a pecu- 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 99 

li.-ir creed Wliat woiulcr tlioir compositions niul 

uddrcsscs arc cokl, wlicu the audience is small and luke- 
warm ? What wonder their aftections are dull, when the 
atmosphere in which they lu'c is heavy and sluggish?" 

Hut we are compelled to say a word more of the 
infelicity of the lot of a Unitarian minister. We sup- 
pose hmi to be, as many of them unquestionably are, a 
man of benevolence, and a man of intelligence ; and he 
is one who is accustomed to look at the progress and 
prospects of society in a broad and philosophical light. 
We ask such a one then in what way he thinks the mis- 
sionary labours of the present age will be regarded by 
posterity ? Say, that these endeavours to convert the 
pagan world shall for the present fail, and be abandoned ; 
or say that they shall prosper, and shall actually usher 
in a glorious universality of the heavenly doctrine ; we 
care not now which of these suppositions is assumed. 
Take the former ; and, if it should be so, will not the men 
who are now carrying their lives in their hands into 
the depths of barbarism be reckoned among the most 
courageous of philanthropists? Will small praise be 
theirs in the lips of the Christians of distant times ? 
^Vho dares think otherwise than that, even although 
their immediate labours should be almost fruitless, the 
men shall be honoured as heroes of mercy? They have 
done what they could. 

But let us take the second, and brighter sup])osition ; 
and does it seem an extravagant one, that the costly 
effort wliicli is now in progress for evangelizing the 
heathen world shall prosper and spread itself, and shall 
go on conquering, as truth conquers delusion, until all 
nations have come to bow the knee to Christ? At the 
moment of the climax of such a success as this, we ask, 

LOFC. 



100 ESSAY II. 

whether the lot of those who stood foremost in the enter- 
prise, and who sustained the sorrow of initial discomfitures, 
will not seem to have been enviable ? We ask, whether 
the men who, on this supposition, may claim to have 
been the promulgators of a new dispensation of mercy 
to mankind, will not be named, and be thought of, as 
among the most illustrious, and the most favoured of 
the human race ? 

Fully we believe that, to the eye of future times, the 
scenes, the actions, the personages of the present evan- 
gelical warfare shall stand forward as those scenes, and 
actions, and personages of the age which are the most 
worthy to fix the gaze of the men of after ages. And 
who is it would wish to be altogether severed from the 
glories and the labours of the missionary work ? Not 
for sceptres, not if the material universe and its flaming 
suns were the bribe, should a man choose to stand off 
from the missionary enterprise. Not for an immortality 
of earthly satisfactions should any one be content, either 
to confess the guilt of an inward indifference to the mis- 
sionary work, or, feeling himself alive to its successes, be 
fettered and held in inaction by the indifference of the 
party to which he belongs. 

But is not this fanaticism ? Let him who calls it so 
come forward and make good his allegation. The hope 
and the zeal of the evangelical community is not the less 
built upon substantial reasoning, even if it has become 
loud and eager. 

What part then has Unitarianism in the blessedness 
of the missionary work ? By the missionary work we 
mean — not the proselytizing at home from other persua- 
sions, but the veritable evanii^elizinQ: of heathen or Mo- 
hammedan nations. A work eminently becoming a great 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 101 



and Christian country ; a work from wliicli no Christian 
man, now that it is actually in progress, can be content 
to stand, either excused or excluded. 

" There never was a system," says a Unitarian writer, 
" which was so general in its regards, which bore so inva- 
sive a character, as Christianity in its earliest days 

Every preacher was a missionary, going about doing 
oood, sent, and glorying in his office, to proclaim the 
acceptable year of the Lord. AVe are sure, therefore, 
that the spirit of missions is the spirit of Christ and of 
Christianity." Or, to use the language of the same writer 
in another place : " All must acknowledge that Chris- 
tianity is fitted for proselytizing, for in this way it gained 
its first and its lairest triumphs. If, then, Unitarianism 
be, as supposed, unfit for this work, it is not the truth 
as it is in Jesus, and the sooner we are rid of it the bet- 
ter." 

So indeed we say. But with this implied inference, 
significant as it is, we have nothing now to do : w^e 
leave it to those whom it concerns. First, for the facts 
of the case, which are soon enumerated. The Unita- 
rians, by their own showing, are the only holders of 
"primitive apostolic Christianity;" — of Christianity 
" uncorrupt, rational, vital." Whatever, therefore, of 
intrinsic power or expansiveness belongs to the Gospel, 
must belong, by emuience, to the Gospel w^hen it is thus 
disengaged from all human additions. Of all forms of 
the doctrine of Christ, Unitarianism must be the most 
energetic, inasmuch as it is the most pure ; nay, as it is 
the 07ili/ pure. Moreover, Unitarians possess all the 
requisites for giving effect and expression to that apos- 
tolic zeal which burns in their bosoms. " Latent power," 
we are told, " they have in abundance ; moral charac- 



102 ESSAY II. 

ter, intellectual worth, and worldly affluence, — none of 
these things are wanting." In truth, we are assured, 
with a solemn iteration of the unquestionable fact, that 
the Unitarians are, for their numbers, the richest body 
of religionists in the kingdom. And we must say, that 
if they are not, in fact, the most numerous^ as well as 
the most wealthy body of religionists, they have had 
a fair chance of becoming so, if indeed this had been 
possible. Why should not " primitive apostolic Chris- 
tianity" have spread itself in England, during the same 
years, as widely as Wesleyan Methodism ? We cannot 
tell why : unless we are permitted to say, that Unita- 
rianism is an impotent doctrine. 

And now for the result, which we may give, first in 
general terms, and then in specific details. And in doing 
so, we shall confine ourselves to authentic Unitarian 
documents. 

Referring to the modern missionary zeal, which, in its 
substance, our authority applauds, he confesses that 
" Unitarians have not moved forward with the general 
mass." " There is a deadness in many of our most use- 
ful institutions, a flatness and apathy in regard to reli- 
gious matters, too frequently prevailing among our lay^— 
brethren." Or, to come nearer to the matter in hand '-—^^ 

"The missionary labours of the Unitarian Associa- 
tion during the last year, must be pronounced an almost 
entire failure. Three missionaries" (that is to say, 
itbierants at home) "have been employed, and they 
have been employed nearly in vain The mis- 
sions" (itinerancies) " conducted by the young men at 
York College, have been from time to time diminished, 
till now they have, witli the exception of that to Wel- 
burn, little more than a name to live." 



UNITARIANI8M IN ENGLAND. 103 



.Vgain : 

''Tlirougbout tlie kingdom, the result of the mission- 
ary hibours luulertakcn by Unitarians of late, has been 
a disappointing one. How happens this ? Chiefly, we 
doubt not, because the spirit of Unitarians in this king- 
dom, is not the missionary spirit. Very many are hos- 
tile to missionary exertions, and especially the more 
rich and influential. The societies that have been and 
are, have struggled into being, and struggle to exist. 
They have in some instances been formed by a few, in 
opposition to the Avill of the many ; while the many 
looked on in apathy or scorn. The propriety of their 
existence has been gravely questioned ; the overture for 
aid to maintain them, met with a smile of astonishment ; 
wliile almost in every instance, those who aflfect to give 
the tone to others, and who unfortunately have had but 
too much influence, have not only kept aloof from, but 
spoken warmly against them. In a word, the current of 
fasliion has been, and still is, of an anti-missionary hue. 
Missionary exertions have been denounced as vulgar, 
as interfering with the harmony and polish of refined 
and miscellaneous society." 

With a singular naivete, after making these ominous 
confessions, the writer goes on : — 

" There may be some who think that the cause of the 
failure of our missionary labours is to be found in the 
unfitness for proselytism of the tenets which we hold. 
If this opinion was well founded, a stronger presumption 
of the falsity of Unitarianism could not be imagined !" 

This may be evidence enough, in relation to our pre- 
sent purpose, but we add a sentence or two, drawn 
fiom the same source. 

" The in>titutions that exist among us for the promo- 



104 ESSAY II. 

tion of the great purposes of* religion, are few in num- 
ber, and languishing for the most part in operation. 
Even the British and Foreign Unitarian Association 
itself, though so catholic in its objects, so judicious in 
its exertions, and inheriting from its predecessors — the 
Fund, so honourable and well merited a reputation, has 
by no means met with the general and hearty co-opera- 
tion that it deserves." 

" The Gospel, they" (the orthodox) " argue is of 
infinite value. The Unitarians are sufficiently indiffer- 
ent about it : little do they to put others in possession 
of its blessings. How can they duly estimate its value, 
or have the spirit of Christ ? Nay, may they not even 
disbelieve that which they are by no means anxious to 
further ?" 

" In consequence of the want of co-operation, our 
institutions and our cause want spirit, activity, and^^ 
energy ; and the orthodox look on, and beholding ho\^B 
much we are at ease, how quiescent w^e each are, how 
little alive to the success of any object, and especially^ 
how lukewarm about the salvation of our fellow-cref 
tures, judge that there must be something radically' 
wrong in our system ; a cooling and chilling influence, 
which breathes not from the pages of the Gospel." 

So much for the general statement of the anti- 
missionary temper of Unitarianism. What are the 
specific facts which have compelled Unitarian writers to 
make confessions such as these ? 

" But the most painful case of failure yet remains to 
be noticed. India, the first field of our missionary exer- 
tions in foreign lands, — India, whose spiritual welfare 
awakened an interest in the breasts of many of the most 
enlightened and pious men of America, as well as Eng- 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 105 

land, — an interest which exhibited the Unitarian body 
in the most pleasing attitude that it ever assumed ; 
India, Avhich with the name of its wise, learned, and 
benevolent Brahmin, gave the fairest promise of an 
eventual, though perhaps a tardy harvest ; this country, 
which had excited our own hope more, perhaps, than 
any other spot, America excepted, is now without a 
Unitarian missionary and the means of Unitarian wor- 
ship ! But we correct ourselves ; we do wrong, in so 
saying, to that excellent and persevering man, AVilliam 
Roberts. We were thinking, in writing the above, of 
Mr. Adam." 

It would be altogether irrelevant to our purpose to 
adduce the pretty well-known histories of the individuals 
above alluded to. Let the labours of William Roberts 
at Madras, or elsewhere, and the defunct efforts of Mr. 
Adam at Calcutta, carry all the importance that can 
possibly attach to them, and let them be held available 
for the desirable purpose of convicting any man of mis- 
representation, who shall be so hasty as to affirm 
that Unitarians have attempted, or are attempting, 
nothing for the diffusion of Christianity among the 
heathen ! Far be it from us to advance any such ca- 
lunmious predication ! By no means ; the Unitarians 
have William Roberts at Madras, and they had Mr. 
Adam at Calcutta ! 

But Ave turn to an account of an annual meeting of 
the " British and Foreign Unitarian Association," the 
object of which is the diffusion, at home and abroad, of 
the unsullied light of rational, liberal, primitive, and apos- 
tolic Christianity. From the statement of the treasurer, 
it appears, tliat (notwitlistanding a "falling off of dona- 
tions and collections") the " most opulent body of 

5* 



10*6 



ESSAY II. 



Christians in England" raised during the year, the sum 
of " one thousand and odd pounds," for the furtherance 
of their pious intentions ! The expenditure has consisted 
of — 1. The charge for purchasing and jorinting books, 
namely, £454 15s. lid. 2. Upwards of £300 expended 
on congregational and missionary objects at home ; and 
3. (let Christendom hear it !) two hundred and fifty 
pounds^ on account, of the Foreign Fund ! 

Yet even this large adventure for converting the peo- 
ple of India — rather for diffusing Unitarianism among 
the English of Calcutta, such is the fact — did not escape 
animadversion as an improper diversion of the funds of 
the Association from the field where they were more 
needed. And though the objector allowed, that, the 
Calcutta mission, having been commenced, they were 
"bound to endeavour to make the best of it," he was far 
from admitting, and none of the speakers affirmed, that 
Unitarians should think of entering boldly as competi- 
tors with the orthodox on the high course of foreign 
evangelization. And yet, why should they not do so ? 
What obstacle stands between Unitarians and the great 
l^agan world ? What, unless it be Unitarian indiffer- 
ence ? Why would it be imprudent to originate some 
eight or ten missions to Africa, India, and the islands of 
the Southern Sea, but because it is utterly absurd to 
suppose that any such act of religious charity would be 
supported or approved by the Unitarian body ? It is a 
missionary age, and the missionary spirit is allowed by 
Unitarians to be eminently proper to Christianity ; and 
yet Unitarians neither go forth to preach the Gospel 
themselves, nor clo they send otliers ! 

We are bound, however, to view this matter of foreign 
missions as it is viewed by Unitarians; and we learn 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND, 



107 



from Ihe highest authority, tliat Unitarians, while eahiily 
sittinij at home m tlieir empty chapels, are wont, with a 
bene^'^olcnt easiness of feeling, to congratulate themselves 
and their jiarty on the successes of orthodox missions ! 
How comfortable a thing it is, if, while others are doing 
our work for us, we may snore away m seed-time, sure 
as we are that our friends will give ns the jog when the 
harvest is all ready to be housed ! Now this, we learn, 
is precisely tlie position of Unitarians at the present 
moment. *The orthodox, in the intemperance of their 
lanatical zeal, are labouring to convert the world. Yes, 
but tlie Unitarians, when the worhl shall be everywhere 
converted, are to fill their garners with the sheaves! 
Hear one of them :— " I see multitudes doing our work, 
whilst they imagine they are acting against us. They 
are preparing the way for that simple system of Chris- 
tianitv which we profess." In the same enviable tem- 
per of undaunted hope, the speaker goes on to comfort 
himself and his colleagues as follows :— " When I see 
numbers of churches building throughout the country, 
my first impression is, how error is supported ! But 
when I look further, I consider that they are all building 
for us !" By the way, would it not be more seemly for 
Unitarians to talk of filling their own chapels noio, than 
of filling orthodox churches a hundred years hence? 
Meantime, and while compelled to confess that by far 
the larger number of their places of assembly are fallen 
into a condition of "deplorable desolation," the announce- 
ment that " all the new churches" are building for Uni- 
tarians, is likely to awaken grim suspicions in the minds 
of shrewd Unitarian laymen— men of the w^orld. 

On another occasion the same intelligent and estima- 
ble man tells us that " those who have examined the 



108 ESSAY II. 

work of Mr. Ellis on the South Sea Islands, the Poly- 
nesian Researches^ may perceive that in them the prin- 
ciples of Unitarianism are essentially taught !" Let ns 
listen to and digest this assertion. As we must not 
think of it as an instance of sheer effrontery, it must 
stand as an example of enormous infatuation. What do 
we mean when we speak of a man's being driven to a 
miserable shift ? Something surely like this : — A leader 
of Unitarianism is called upon to make an animating 
speech at a public dinner ; it comes in his way to allude 
to the missions of the present day : but those around 
him well know that Unitarians have nothing to do with 
these Christian enterprises : Avhat remains then for hira 
to say about them ? Why this : that the preachers of 
the doctrine of the Trinity are "essentially teaching the 
simple principles of Unitarianism ?" 

Such are the facts. Let them for a moment be viewed 
in that light in which they will appear to posterity, on 
the supposition that Unitarianism is Christianity. In 
that case it will stand on the page of Church history, for 
the astonishment and scandal of all thoughtful minds — 
firsts that the fanatical and deluded professors of a cor- 
rupt and idolatrous creed were the men to originate, 
and perseveringly to carry on, the truly Christian enter- 
prise of turning the nations from their superstitions ; and 
that in this enterprise they were conspicuously recog- 
nized and prospered by Heaven. And secondly^ it will 
appear, that the only Christians (such in a genuine sense) 
of this missionary age, were also the only men who took 
no part in the work ; that of these " true Christians," 
the majority openly opposed the undertaking, "looking 
upon it with apatliy or scorn," and "meeting an appli- 
cation for aid with a smile of astonishment ;" in such 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 109 



sort that the confession was wrung from the chiefs of the 
party, that " the spirit of Unitarians" (the only Chris- 
tians) "is not a missionary spirit^^'' and that they are 
" sufficiently indifterent whether other men and nations 
partake of the blessings of the Gospel or not !" These 
are the fiicts which are even now going down to pos- 
terity. Upon tlie unalterable page of history it is even 
now being written, that the attempt to propagate Chris- 
tianity has been scjrned and denounced by the only men 
of the times who, according to their own account, pos- 
sess the doctrme of Him that said, " Go ye out into all 
the world, and preach the Gospel !" 



SECTION V. 

To insist at length upon the inference bearing against 
the pretensions of Unitarianism, as furnished by this 
state of things, is not our immediate purpose. But M-e 
say, that the man upon whom the edge of that inference 
falls, is, if conscious of its force, one of the most unhappy 
of his species ; or, if not, he is one of the most infatuated. 
We will take up the only two suppositions that the case 
admits of: either the Unitarian minister is himself indif- 
ferent to the propagation of the Gospel ; or being zealous 
for it, he finds himself one of a party that by none of his 
eloquence can be roused to give him any aid. Take the 
first of these supposed cases. It is true, that a layman, 
who has nothing to do with religion but to sit his hour 
once a week in his pew, may be very tranquil, and very 
well satisfied with himself, even in the consciousness of 
an utter destitution of Christian zeal ; but it can never 
be so with a public functionary ; nothing can render the 



110 ESSAY II. 

weekly performance of religious services before a small 
and lifeless congregation, by one who is himself devoid 
of zeal, otherwise than insufferably burdensome ; — no- 
thing, or we ought to say, nothing but large or secure 
secular advantages. For the sake, or, to use a phrase 
proper to a mercantile transaction, for the consideration 
of a thousand per annxim^ or of even two hundred 
pounds absolutely unalienable, a man may courageously 
bear himself through the irksome formalities of public 
worship. Not so the needy man, who, if he displease 
his employers, may be discharged from his pulpit, and 
lose his morsel of bread. To such a one, disheartened 
and anxious, the conscious want of religious zeal in him- 
self, and the sight of the conspicuous inefficiency of his 
perfoi-mance, will be enough to afflict him with an 
unutterable disgust. And a tenfold force will belong to 
this inward misgiving, in times like the present. We 
are not misunderstanding the invariable principles of 
human nature, when we say, that the zeal, and the dis- 
interested activity, and the self-denying diligence, and 
the gladsome excitement, which are now stirring among 
the better part of the clergy of all denominations (Uni- 
tarians excepted) must press as an adverse power upon 
the self-condemned heart of the man who feels himself 
alive to no kindred emotions, and who can take no part 
in all that is around him. We repeat it, that a minister 
of religion, consciously destitute of zeal, who might have 
been contented, or at least tranquil, fifty years ago, can 
now do nothing but abhor the profession to which he 
finds himself tied. 

But let us look at the other supposition — the case of a 
Unitarian minister, who, like the writer from whom we 
have made frequent quotations, feels, in all its force, the 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. Ill 

unquestionable truth, tluit Cliristianity is essentially an 
invasive, expansive doctrine ; he confesses that something, 
nay, much, must be wrong in its professors, if their spirit 
be not a missionary spirit ; he admits, that those (what- 
ever errors they may fall into) who are actually going 
forth to preach the Gospel to the heathen, arc most 
hai>i)ily, most consistently, most nobly employed ; he 
cannot but grant that, though scoffed at by the scoffers 
of their times, posterity will do them justice, and will 
call them the most heroic of philanthropists ; nay, that 
Heaven will confess them as its servants ; he would fjiin, 
spite of the corruptions to which they adhere, take part 
with them in their labours: he stejjs forward, but his 
comi)anionship is avoided ; (and it must be so.) Those 
who are zealously propagating the Gospel of God, their 
Saviour, will shrink Avith iear from contact with the 
imi>ugner of its capital doctrines ; (they must so draw 
back.) Rejected, he turns towards the men of his party. 
He sees them affluent and well-informed ; but, alas ! 
utterly destitute of any motive powerful enough to com- 
mand labours, sufferings, or contributions in the cause 
of the Gospel ; or worse than this, they are sarcastically 
hostile to the "visionary and useless crusade of the 
times." Scarcely one lay Unitarian in a hundred con- 
fesses to be animated by a zeal like his own ; and nothing 
could be more preposterous than to hope that the party 
at large should be moved to bring forward their twenty 
or fifty thousand pounds yearly, for the support of a 
religious undertaking. What but an utter despondency, 
what but an anguish of sorrow, can belong then, in this 
age of religious zeal, to the zealous Unitarian minister ? 
What can be added to the discomfort of his lot, unless 
it be the dark surmise which naturally springs from the 



112 ESSAY II. 

i:)erplexity of his position, aiid the fiiintness which that 
perplexity forces on his heart ? After all, must he be 
tempted to say, is this Christianity, which proves itself 
to be potent only when it is corrupted, and which inva- 
riably becomes effete when it is pure ; is it worth the 
spending of life, fortune, family welfare, talents, reputa- 
tion, in its service ? Why occupy a life in attempting to 
purge the feculence of a system, which, whenever it is 
thoroughly purged, lies motionless as a corjose ? Does 
Heaven indeed demand so large a sacrifice to so little 
purpose — to no purpose? Racking and interminable 
questions ! wretched condition of inextricable doubt ! 
Rather than endure it, it were better to plunge into the 
oblivious flood of universal scepticism. Pursue but a 
few steps further the path of disbelief; reject altogether 
this cumbrous, supernatural scheme, and then, although 
perplexities enough may still hang in the way, they are 
no longer the peculiar burden of individuals. They 
darken, indeed, the path of humanity, but they do not 
rest as a reproach, and a snare, and a curse, upon a single 
head ; they are no longer the scandal of him who, with 
luckless presumption, has assumed oflice among men as 
the interpreter of God. 

We have now only to repeat w^hat we have ventured 
to affirm, that, viewed on every side, secular, profes- 
sional, and spiritual, the lot of an English Unitarian 
minister is at this time pre-eminently undesirable ; and 
we affirm it so to be on this ground, that he stands in a 
false position, and is devoting life, intelligence, acquire- 
ments, and many estimable and serviceable qualities, to 
the hopeless task of upholding a scheme of religious 
doctrine which makes no way, and which, while it is too 
incoherent, as related to the Scriptures, to win the 



UNITARIANISM IN ENGLAND. 113 

approval of the people at large, is too much ontanoled 
with the supernatural to gain any favour with philo- 
sophical unbelievers. 

In this essay we have spoken of the state of Uni- 
tarianisni in England — such as it was thirty years ago. 
In another essay we propose to inquire what changes 
itself has undergone in this lapse of time, and what has 
now become its relative position as compared with other 
religious communities, and with the national progress. 



I 



ESSAY III. 

NILUS: — THE CHRISTIAN COURTIER IN" THE DESERT. 

TrEx^sures, convertible to the purposes of Christian 
edification, as well as of entertainment, are yet entombed 
in the folios of the patristic literature. But if it be so, 
Avhy have not these riches been made more generally 
available for the benefit of the Christian community of 
these times ? This is a question which it is natural and 
reasonable to ask, and for an answer to which w^e need 
not go far. The reader of this Essay, for one, and the 
writer of it for another, may each of us find it in or 
among his own , prepossessions, his preoccupations — 
whether theological or ecclesiastical : or let now the 
reader and the writer be quite candid and confidential — 
for no one is listening at the door; it is in your preju- 
dice, kind reader, perhaps, and in mine, that we must 
look for the obstruction which shuts us out from the 
enjoyment of an inheritance whereupon otherwise we 
might forthwith enter — an inheritance left to us by our 
predecessors in the Christian life. 

If, in opening the voluminous records and remains of 
the Christian life of the early ages, I seek to enhearten 
myself for a labour so arduous as is implied in the 
perusal of this mass, by help of some new-born zeal in 
behalf of this or that religious whim, or superstition, or 
sectarian belief — if I do this, I shall gather, as I go, 



NILUS. 



115 



tlie cl»art— I sliall leave untouclied the precious grain. 
Assuredly there /uifi been a genuine Christian life in each 
successive age ; but it was not at all the life which I am 
pleased to Think of, and which I am looking for, and 
which I am resolved to find in my folios, whether it be 
there or not. It has been a life which was new to each 
age that has developed it for itself, but antiquated in 
relation to the following ages, each of which develops 
its own : it has been a life which we should not presume 
to call LIFE, if we did not believe it to contain those 
spiritual rudiments that are unchanging and eternal— 
that are the same yesterday, and to-day, and for ever ;— 
a life wherewith we may well hold communion now, and 
into the heart of which we may safely make our Avay ; 
yet on this one condition, that we put oiF, for" a time, 
our polemical eagernesses— that we lay aside our weapons 
and our jackets of iron, and enter, in a subdued mood 
of mind, as if we were standing and tremblhig— one 
foot on the threshold of that general assembly and 
universal concourse of the fjuthful of all times which is 
gathered in presence of the Judge of all. 

Let then the reader give me his hand, in a kindly 
manner, for half an hour or so, and I will do my best to 
lead him right away into the midst of Christian life — 
such as it was in the fifth century. 

It is true that the materials before us, in this particular 
instance, are not very ample ; but yet they are more so 
than in many analogous instances ; and what is better, 
they are more specific than are most others, and (appa- 
rently) they are more genuine and trustworthy than 
most. In opening them we are not ofiended by exagge- 
rations and childish absurdities; we are not invited to 
gaze at a puppet-show of wonders ; we have to do with 



116 ESSAY III, 

sheer human nature — with its keen sensibilities, with its 
vividness of feeling, as displayed in times of hope and 
of fear, and all, powerfully moulded under the energies 
of a firm Christian belief. 

What we gather from his own extant writings, and 
from the brief notices of contemporary or later writers 
concerning the personal history of Nilus, is soon re- 
ported ; it does not need to be condensed. 

This good man, to whom we would not choose to 
apply his conventional designation, "the holy Father 
and Abbot, I^ilus," is reported to have been of noble 
birth in Constantinople, and to have occupied, as due 
to his position in society, a high place, opening to him 
the honours and wealth of public life and official dignity 
in the metropolis of the Eastern Emj)ire. And this 
position might be irrespective of his personal qualifica- 
tions for the discharge of its duties, or even of his indi- 
vidual Avishes or ambition. For a time he filled the 
place of Prefect of Constantinople, but whether this 
was for years, or only for months, is not known ; yet it 
was a time long enough to confirm him in the long- 
cherished purpose to release himself from every secular 
distraction (if such a release might indeed at any price 
be obtained) and to follow the yearning of his soul 
toward the peace-giving enjoyments of the anchoretic 
life, far — far from the haunts of men. It was thus that, 
amidst the pomps and din of the metropolis of the 
Eastern world, and the barbaric glitter of its court, and 
the revelries of its effeminate and voluptuous nobles, 
and, moreover, as surrounded by the revolting de- 
baucheries and the hypocrisies of the religious orders 
of those times — it was as thus placed that he pictured 
to himself the heaven-like delights of the contemplative 



NILUS. 117 



life — life in the desert — life properly so called ; — the 
day spent in the shadow of a gvcat rock ; by night, a 
sufficient shelter from the dews of heaven found in a 
cleft or cavern of the same, or in the cool recesses of an 
abandoned sepulchre ! Holy Scripture his only book 
and his constant study ; the companionship of some 
like-minded with himself Iiis solace ; his few bodily 
■wants, how easily should they be provided for ! herbs, 
and a morsel of the coarsest bread, how content should 
he be with such fare ! and how Avell pleased thus to 
dine, and thus to bring himself quite near to the incor- 
poreal liberty of angelic existences ! Who, or who that 
is wise, would not choose, nay, would not earnestly 
covet, the lot of those Avho thus pass the appointed 
days of their sojourning on earth, and thus breathe an 
untainted atmosphere, and thus make the clear vault of 
heaven their rooting by day and by night ? How much 
better were this, than to sit long hours, nauseating the 
sumptuous dainties of royal banquets, in the imprison- 
ment of imperial halls and of hollow ceremonies — a 
guest in those halls, enchained by the false and irksome 
usages of rank and office; lovhig no one; justly sus- 
picious of every one ; loved by none ; envied by all — 
might not a wise and Christianly-minded man think the 
ti'anquil lot of the life-long captive in the imperial dun- 
geon beneath his feet a happier lot ? True it is that 
the perishing and despicable body of the prisoner is 
enchained; but then the spirit, how free may it be! 
The heart is at ease, or may be so ; the tongue also is 
enchained, entombed in that pit ; prayer and praise may 
arise, where none are at hand to rebuke these utterances 
of the soul sent heavenward with a force that penetrates 
the massive vault ! 



118 ESSAY III, 

Yes ! the prisoner in the dungeon, far down beneath 
the marbled pavements of the palace, may be envied by 
him who paces it, laden with the baubles of that false 
existence to which he is bound. But in truth there is 
no necessity for making a choice in an alternative so 
extreme as this ; conditions far less severe, are they not 
at my option ? Liberty and life, and the near neigh- 
bourhood of the unseen world, may they not be found 
and enjoyed in the desert ? Shall I not then hasten 
thither? Why postpone this felicity a day ? At some 
spot in the depths of those holy solitudes where the 
Eternal Majesty awhile ago held converse Avitli His 
chosen servants, there will I seek, and there shall I find 
that peace which the world denies, and which, indeed, it 
has no power to bestow — and does not bestow, even for 
an hour. So it came about that the courtier, the magis- 
trate, resolved to spend his residue of days — in the wil- 
derness. 

Nevertheless, in the way of this resolve there stood 
opposed obligations which he dared not abruptly violate. 
He must disengage himself from them by aid of that sort 
of slow and pain-giving process which we inflict upon 
ourselves when it happens that the gratification of some 
Avish or taste which, abstractedly considered, we believe 
to be lawful, or even commendable, is forbidden us by 
homely reasons of duty and of Christian virtue. The 
wish, the whim, the taste, crouches, on such occasions, 
within the soul, silent and motionless, assured as it is that 
it shall not in the end be thwarted ; sure as is the beast 
of prey of its victim, seen to be now trembling at the 
cave's mouth. But there must first take place, and with 
a fair semblance of hones reality, an outside parley with 
the unwelcome remonstr nces of duty — with the outcry 



NILUS. 119 

of nature, and with the plain meaning of the Divine 
hiw, — 80 it was with tliis Cliiistian man at this crisis of 
his Ufe. 

XiLUS had a home, as well as a seat among princes ; 
he was a husband and a father. A wife, a son, and a 
daughter* are not to be tlirown off as easily, or with as 
little compunction, as what he would feel in laying aside 
his robes of office. Himself and his wife were at this 
time still hi mid-age — so w^e must infer from the terms 
which he employs in excusing to himself the resolution 
he had formed. The separation, he says, was noio me- 
ritorious — it was an act worthy of the Christian athlete ; 
but if it were much longer delayed, what praise could it 
then deserve ? The resolve was therefore formed ; 
and how to carry it out with the least possible expen- 
diture of fruitless feeling was the only question. For 
this purpose he assumes an aspect of immovable fixed- 
ness ; his words are few ; his tones are those with which 
he might have been used to pronounce sentence of death 
upon one from whom he would, mercifully, cut off all 
hope of pardon. He takes his children by the hand 
(the son a youth just rising from boyhood), he commends 
the daughter to her mother's care, and then announces 
liis purpose to depart Avith the youth for the Arabian 
wilderness : — a stern purpose, resolutely accomplished. 
How far it was wisely done it is not now in these i:)ages 
our business to inquire. Yet it was not done in apathy 
on the side of the husband, for he was a man of keen 
sensibility, as appears from the narrative ; much less was 
it submitted to on the part of the wronged wife and 
mother with indifference. In this instance we hear of 

* A daughkr : we must so road llio text, and not two sun.'i. The 
narrative demands tliis version. 



120 ESSAY III. 

no plea of " incompatibility of temper," which might 
serve to gloze an immoral act, and to render the parties 
more than acquiescent in the separation. If the husband 
felt what a man feels who undergoes amputation, the 
wife yields to the iron resolve of the husband, and gives 
him, in floods of tears, her /brma? acquiescence, without 
which the Church of those times would not have sanc- 
tioned the act ; and she smothers her fruitless sorrows, 
and hides her enforced widowhood, with her daughter, 
in an Egyptian convent. 

But now we remind ourselves of our intention in this 
essay — which is not that of holding up to warrantable 
reprehension the mistaken notions, the fallacious reason- 
ings, the dangerous, though specious practices of an age 
gone by. This we do not mean to do; we take the 
things which we find, whether they be altogether appro- 
vable or not so, and we look at them in kindly mood, 
much as we are accustomed now to think and to speak 
of the whims and the strange notions of some estimable 
Christian friend of whom we are wont to say, " I quite 
disallow -my friend's notions, and I smile at his pecu- 
liarities ; but when I have said this, and I must say it, 
then I will acknowledge that I often admire, and would 
gladly imitate, his lofty and yet lowly Christian temper, 
his elevation of spirit, his self-denial, his smgleness of 
purpose, his labours of charity." 

Thus it is, then, that we now make acquaintance with 
our anchoret — once a magistrate and prince. To revert, 
for a moment, to the initial act of his ascetic course — 
this separation from his wife. It should first be men- 
tioned that, according to the notions and the usages of 
the Church of those times, this was the inevitable con- 
dition of entering u})on the " religious life," either in the 



NILUS. 121 

anchoretio, or tlic conventual mode— a final cessation of 
conjugal intercourse, a renunciation of the domestic 
existence must be made, or there could be no upper 
class Christian existence. This being understood, then 
let us turn aside for a moment, and make search, in our 
own hearts, for those motives which might, in that age, 
or indeed in any other, but especially in that age, prompt 
a purpose of sejiaration. Our hypothesis in this instance 
is this— that it is not a case of apathy, or of mutual wea- 
riness, or of " incompatibility of temper," but of vivid 
sensibility and sincere affection, tender and warm on 
both sides. This is our hypothesis; and then our prin- 
ciple is an uncompromising disapproval of any such dis- 
solution or abrogation of the conjugal union; those 
reasons— if there be any, by which it might be made to 
appear in any case warrantable, must be peculiar indeed ; 
and the exceptive instances must be so rare as to excuse 
our takmg account of them. 

The one bright spot on the broad surface of the 
human system— that illuminated area outside of which, 
in all directions, things are only in different degrees som- 
bre — is that home circle within which reign love and 
duty— conjugal, parental, fihal ;— and these, blessed, as 
they may be, by the influence of a vivid and genuine 
Christian faith. Thus blessed and thus ruled also, the 
domestic life yields a clearer and more convincing evi- 
dence of the Divine benignity than could elsewhere be 
found, though we were to search the upper heavens for 
a better instance. 

But now let another, and yet not a contrary, deep 
truth be admitted— for it could avail us nothing to 
"cloke or dissemble" what cannot be denied : our other 
truth is this— that tlie life seen and temi)oral, and the 

6 



122 ESSAY III 

life eternal are at a jar, and that this jar— this misfitting, 
makes itself felt most sensibly just when each is at its 
highest pitch of perfection in its own sense. Abate each 
of these intensities a little— bring down each to a mean 
level— a degree or two below the "settled fine" to 
which each aspires to rise— and then the jar is scarcely 
felt ; there is then httle or no consciousness of it in those 
concerned. What we should mean in saying this might 
otherwise be worded. Take the instance of a husband 
and wife, each of them afi*ectionate, amiable, wise in 
temper, and discreet in behaviour; but of a rate of sen- 
sibility less than the highest, a devotedness of the heart 
less than the most absolute, a depth of soul that is less 
deep than an abyss. Take, at the same time, a rate of 
religious feeling which, in about the same proportion, is 
abated or tempered ; and then, when the life of the pre- 
sent life is ruled and sanctified by the motives and the 
beliefs of the life eternal, the product is an equal mea- 
sure 'of love and harmony ; earth and heaven are seem- 
ingly all at one ; human affections are raised and puri- 
fied ; and the divine life is exhibited in a form that is 
appro vable, and attractive, and edifying. 

AVhy then should we desire anything more than this? 
Why should we not stop short where the substance 
of a tranquil happiness may be found? This is not a 
question that need ever be answered, for it is one 
that will never be pointedly advanced, except in those 
instances that, in truth, admit of no answer applicable 
to the case. Let the sensibilities be as acute and as pro- 
found as sometimes they are ; and let the conjugal love 
embrace the entire existence of each, and let it be such 
as touches the springs of the moral life ; and then add 
to our supposition this countervailing element, namely, 



NILUS. 123 

an equal intensity of the religious affections — even such 
an intensity as is daily urging the soul onward toward 
a truition of the Divine favour; the powers of the life 
eternal are so striving within the soul, as at times would 
seem to render the most costly sacrifice of earthly felicity 
— yes, the choicest felicity — not merely toleral)le, but, 
may we not say so, a sacrifice, an anguish, to be wished for ! 

Now, then, we have in view an intelligible solution of 
what might appear to be a moral paradox. That the 
selfisli, the crabbed in temper, should easily reconcile 
themselves to the pain of a parting, and that such also 
should do so who have been ti'ained under a relioious 
system which attributes a false merit to the act, or that 
such also should do so who live under some modern dis- 
pensation of contempt for the law of God — these cases 
are not perplexing. But can we understand those other 
instances in which the most intense and genuine affec- 
tions have been voluntarily rent in two by forces that 
show themselves to be still more intimate? We seem 
to catch a glimpse of a state of feeling at the impulse of 
M hich a rending like this might actually take place, as a 
voluntary act. 

The apostolic rule, with its implied reasons and its 
limitations (1 Cor. vii. 5) clearly recognizes, and it allows 
as warrantable, a feeling which, if we only suppose it to 
become much enhanced, might bring us to a state of 
mind such as we have now imagined. That it actually 
existed in force, and that it did issue in the final separa- 
tion of loving husbands and wives, is a fact of which the 
evidences are many, occurring upon the pages of the 
ascetic biographies, as well ancient as modern. It is 
more than I would venture to aftirm that our Xilus was 
a loving husband of this ordtr • but wc should gather 



124 ESSAY III. 

surely, from the language of his narrative, the belief that 
his injured wife was indeed a loving wife, whose keen 
affections ought to have been respected. 

Fully to understand cases of this sort, of which 
many present themselves in the patristic and in tb 
Romish devotional writings, we must carry ourselv 
back to the same times, and endeavour to realize the 
moral and religious views and motives of that dim tran- 
sition period. The healthful, the practicable Christian 
morality of the apostolic writings had, at an early time 
— as early, certainly, as the end of the second century — 
blended itself w^ith the spurious oriental doctrine, with 
its unnatural refinements and its lurid theory of the world, 
and with its distorted notions of every reality of human 
existence. This mixture, poisonous in its qualities, and 
fatal as it was to the spiritual health of those who re- 
ceived it, affected most directly the upper and the edu- 
cated orders within the Christian community. It was 
the Christian gentleman, such as our Nilus, and the 
Christian lady, such as were many "noble women" of 
the same age, that had wandered beneath the shadow 
of the Oriental Philosophy, and that, while pleasing 
themselves in that dimness, lost the ruddy health of 
better times, and had become pallid, and the prey of 
whims. 

Feelings, and refinements of feeling, which even we — 
the better taught Christian men and w^omen of these 
times, may at least recognize and understand, how vivid 
might they become^ when they w^ere favoured by the 
opinions, the feelings, and the usages that were on every 
side prevalent in the fourth and the fifth centuries ! 
Moreover, there is a peculiarity of those ages which 
should be well kept in view, and it is this — that the 



ejf^ 



NILUS. 125 

companionable equality of the sexes, which is the pro- 
per fruit of the Cliristiau morality, and which is a prin- 
cipal element of our modern European civilization, had 
little or no place in the ancient and the Greek civiliza- 
tion. Xo doubt it would have followed in the track of 
Christianity, had not the course of things been turned 
aside by the incoming of the ascetic doctrine, and by its 
pernicious usages. This purifying Christian influence 
was in fact counteracted at a very early time, and con- 
sequently (if very rare instances have been allowed for) 
the Christian husband did not think of .finding a Chris- 
tian friend, and an adviser, and a help in his wife. The 
believing wife, on her part, expected no corresponding 
aid from her husband ; but instead of any such healing 
and sanctifpng mutuality in the religious life, the two, 
although both of them believers, were taught to regard 
each other, not indeed as enemies^ but as hinderers of 
each other's progress on the arduous path of Christian 
perfection. The next step, where feelings of this kind 
existed, it was not so difiicult to take, as, to us of this 
time, it may seem. Such husbands and such wives 
might soon come to persuade themselves that they were 
acting meritoriously when they said, "It is true that, 
according to the Divine institution, we are one ; but this 
institution itself is such that it needs apology, and, in 
fact, do we not feel ourselves to be — in a lofty and 
spiritual sense — antagonists rather than helpers? Let 
lis then separate, and each, singly and unencumbered, 
henceforth tread that rugged path which leads heaven- 
ward. Farewell ! till we meet where all shall be as the 
angels of God." 

If the injured wife and mother, in the instance before 
us, had desired revenge, which her silent tears forbid us 



126 ESSAY III. 

to suppose, she might speedily have found it ; or found 
it, if indeed the story of the sufferings of her husband 
and son in the wilderness had reached her in the clois- 
ter where she hid her life-long grief. Nilus, as it seemed, 
had too easily persuaded himself that the contemplative ■ 
life, Which he found to be impracticable in the imperial 
city, might at once and certainly be enjoyed in or among 
the recesses of Sinai. He should have informed himself 
better of the state of things in the peninsula ; he should 
have consulted, if not a " Handbook of the Desert,'' 
yet some of those lay persons, merchants, or military 
men, whose views of things were uncoloured and truth- 
ful. It was not so, as we must suppose ; on the con- 
trary, he had conversed — enraptured, with holy monks 
lately returned from the Holy Places, and who described 
to him " life in the desert" in all its purity, simplicity, 
and cerulean tranquillity ; a life how blessed, how nearly 
neighbouring upon heaven, how ardently to be desired, 
and how cheaply purchased, although it should be at 
the price of wealth, honours, and every tie of earthly 
relationship ! so he thought ; and thus accordingly he 
acted. 

The holy men of the wilderness, especially those fre- 
quenting the Sinaitic Peninsula, congregated themselves 
so far as this, that they constructed their huts — each 
one for himself, within the distance of a few paces from 
those next adjoining. Their time through the week 
they spent in solitude, but they were wont to assemble 
on the Sunday within the walls of a church — a building 
sufficient in its garniture for the celebration of divine 
service. Having selected a spot where a spring secured 
for them a sufficient supply of water round the year, 
they, or some of them, constructed huts of such mate- 



NILUS. 127 

rials as might be collected in the desert — fragments of 
rock, and the long grass or reeds found at spots in the 
wadys. Others betook themselves — and perhaps they 
made the wiser choice, to the natural caverns of the 
mountains, Mithin which a better defence against winds 
and rains might be found, and a more safe retreat when 
the enemy was abroad. Some of these clefts of the 
Sinaitic region offered a more even temperature, sum- 
mer and winter, day and night, than could be found in 
the most substantial buildings, and which, perhaps, are 
such as might even now tempt a traveller to make an expe- 
riment of — life in the w^ilderness — for a few days, at least. 

There is much uniformity in those descriptions of the 
anchoretic life which meet us in the patristic records. 
Yet there are differences. The hermits of the Upper 
Nile — the emaciated tenants of the sepulchres which 
honeycomb its rocky banks — had many of them become 
scarcely human in their style and behaviour ; and albeit 
they w^ere christianized, professedly, yet were they the 
genuine successors and representatives of a fakir race 
that might boast a very high antiquity. Some, perhaps 
many, of the anchorets of Upper Egypt were pitiable 
beings, who, at moments when persecution raged in 
cities, conscious of their inability to stand the fiery 
tiial, had fled, and had sought safety where alone, at that 
time, it might be found. Some, and more than a few of 
them, were in this i)light; — they had lost or broken 
every social tie ; they were outcasts, perhaps outlaws, 
and they were glad to hide their miseries in a sepulchre. 

But if, turning hence, we choose to roi\m along the 
shores of the Euxine, and if we stop where a wooded 
amphitheatre, with its watered slopes — gay and fragrant 
^^•ith flowers, might tempt princes from their palaces — if 



128 ESSAY III. 

in such a natural paradise we make search for the holy 
anchoret— the tasteful and luxurious intellectualist— the 
Basil of the fourth century — and if there we find him, we 
shall come to question the propriety of applying one term, 
or one set of terms, to modes of existence that, in almost 
every sense, are the contraries, the one of the other. 

The anchoretic life assumed a middle aspect through- 
out those countries which in fact lie midway between 
the regions we have named. Monasticism, such as we 
may gather an idea of it from the pages of Ephrem Sy- 
rus, or from the personal references to it occurring in 
the writings of the great theologue of Bethlehem, Je- 
rome, was comparatively a reasonable scheme of religious, 
or of literary retirement— more regardful of the ends of 
a secluded and abstemious course, than ambitious of 
repute on behalf of incredible austerities. 

Men who sought something more extreme, more satis- 
fying to a romantic turn than they could find in the mo- 
nasteries or the hermitages of Syria and Palestine, 
moved further on toward the Arabian desert, or they 
boldly struck into the heart of it. So did our Constan- 
tinopolitan courtier. The terrific grandeur of the scenery, 
surpassed by no Alpine area in the world, together with 
its sacred historic associations, were of that kind which 
well combine themselves with emotions of religious awe 
and wonder, and especially with that powerful— that all- 
powerful impulse of the human mind, to draw itself up 
toward any point supposed to be near to the world eter- 
nal and invisible. Palestine must yield to Sinai in the 
esteem of those who thus yearn to live, as near as may 
be possible while in the flesh, to the splendours and to 
the terrors of the world upon which we are to enter, at 
the moment when the flesh returns to its earth. 



NILUS. 129 

There were anchoretic coiiiiminities located upon tlie 
narrow areas, and within the wadys of the Sinaitic 
region ; but there were also some of the solitaries who, 
either for the sake of a more entire seclusion, or perhaps 
of greater security as toward the Bedouin freebooters, 
lodged themselves in caves or crevices of the holy moun- 
tain. It seems that Nilus and his son Tiieodtji.us had 
taken this course, and had become tenants of a nook, 
high up on the side of the hill. We may be allowed to 
conjecture that, in removing himself from the resources 
and amenities of civilization, he had reserved to himself 
funds or stores sufficient for at least some months of the 
experiment in this new existence. The tender paternal 
feeling, of which the narrative gives evidence, would 
impel the lather to provide against the death of this 
delicate youth, as well as of himself, by absolute starva- 
tion. 

As to those who constituted the monastic community 
below, their mode of life or manner of existence was 
nearly the same as that of which we meet descriptions 
everywhere in the patristic wi'itings. A few of these 
recluses — and it was a few only, did not think them- 
selves bound to eschew the use of bread (or of wheaten 
cakes unleavened) ; these, therefore, furnished with a 
rude hoe, and appropriating to themselves a few square 
yards of the arid surface, found it possible to raise a 
crop sufficient, each, for his consumption through the 
winter months: during the summer the spontaneous 
products of the desert were available and sufficient. 

As to the more sternly purposed of the brethren, 
they condemned, as to themselves at least, the grain 
upon which cooks and confectioners expend their skill 
for the pampering of gluttonous appetites. Men of this 

6* 



130 ESSAY III. 

class — or, as they were called, the athletic aspirants to 
the " angelic" style of existence — these roamed throiigii 
the wadys, gathering berries, or searching for esculent 
roots ; subsisting each day upon such as were perishable, 
and collecting a store of such as might be dried and 
preserved. So it was, as always it is, that those who 
aim at extravagances for conscience sake, are, by sheer 
force of nature, driven into shifts of inconsistency. It 
is certain that to collect and to dry, and to make a store 
of acrid berries, is nothing else than a violation of the 
caution, "Lay not up for yourselves treasures upon 
earth ;" or it is so if, indeed, the storing of wheat in a 
barn is a violation of that precept. Yet we are now 
intending to look at the eremitic life not critically, but 
in a kindly temper. It should be added that (so we are 
assured) some of these solitaries took food only on 
Sunday ; others, twice or three times in the week ; the 
more feeble, once in the twenty-four hours. 

Thus thought of, we may easily believe, as to life in 
the desert — free and cheaply purchased, and enacted 
under an Arabian sky, that it might eagerly be taken 
to, even by multitudes from among our dense popula- 
tions (if only it were near at hand) as most desirable, 
when the alternative is the squalor, and the hideous 
conditions, and the crushing cares of an attic or a cellar 
in London or Glasgow. Add to the attractions of desert 
life — to its liberty and its exhilarating atmosphere, a 
vivid belief of the life eternal — its nearness, its certainty, 
its splendours, its rewards, its triumphs over cruel perse- 
cutors and over Satan and his" hosts ; and give also to 
the eremite that which most of them possessed in the 
fourth and fifth centuries — portions of holy Scripture 
either in hand or in memory — give him these good 



NILUS. 



131 



tliings, and those solaces, tlicse iiKlulgcnccs— and must 
we not admit that his lot is such as many of ourselves 
might think enviable ? 

The xVrahian desert, then as now, and as at all times 
within the historic period, was claimed as their own by 
the lawless tribes whose hands are against every man, 
and who subsist by the sword, and not either by the 
plough or the bow. In the narrative before us we find 
the Bedouin of the fifth century depicted, in outline and 
•in colouring, the same being as ever; the difference 
between the ancient and the modern marauder being 
that which has resulted from his abandonment of his 
primeval and sanguinary idolatry, and his acceptance 
of the faith and the usages of Mahomet's institute. 
These tribes, at times anterior to their conversion, and 
to the consequent superinduction of a loftier fuiiaticism 
than that known to their lathers, were no doubt more 
ferocious — probably much more so, than they are at 
present. 

Yet even in those earlier times the Arabian tribes 
yielded themselves to the control of constituted powers, 
and their sheiks were able, on their behalf, to enter into 
treaties of peace with the bordering authorities of the 
Eastern Empire. Unconquered and unconquerable, they 
nevertheless recognized the neighbouring states, which, 
within their proper region, they set at defiance. It ap- 
pears, moreover, that the monastic establishments exist- 
ing within the bounds of the desert, such as those in the 
peninsula of Sinai, had come to act in some mode of 
useful intervention or mediation between the European 
and the Arabian populations. On the ground of this 
mediation, the chiefs pledged themselves to the monks 
for their secure iihndo in tlie wilderness. These treaties 



132 ESSAY III 

were however violated at times, especially when a tribe 
or gang, pressed by want, surmised that the monks had 
accumulated a larger amount of winter stores than usual. 

Such seems to have been the state of things at the 
moment Avhen Nilus introduces us to the incidents of 
his life in the desert. This moment was soon after (we 
do not know how soon after) the time of his enteiing 
upon it with his son. 

NiLus, with his son in hand, had descended from his 
retreat on the lofty flanks of the mountain, intending to 
pass some time, according to his custom, among the 
brethren, whose settlement occupied a watered gorge 
beneath. Suddenly, like a thunderstorm, and without 
warning, down came rushing upon them a band of these 
lawless Arabs. It was at the early daw^n, and the holy 
brethren had just concluded the morning service ; — the 
last notes of the hymn of praise had died aw^ay. Like 
famishing savage animals, these barbarians sought for, 
found, and seized, the whole of the stores of food which 
the brethren had laid up for the approaching winter. 
This treasure secured, the ruffians dragged the fathers 
forth from the church, stripped, and driven like sheep 
to the slaughter. The senior of the fraternity only, or 
two or three others, then met their death, giving to the 
others an example of meek resignation in the endurance 
of the most savage treatment from these barbarians. 

Those of the monks who escaped death hid themselves 
among the rocks: some were led off prisoners; and 
among these was Theodulus, the young son of Nilus. 
He himself, as he candidly tells us, made his escape. A 
presentiment of calamity or death had come upon the 
senior presbyter, who, the evening before this fatal day, 
when inviting his brethren to their repast, had, with 



NILUS. 133 

more tlian liis usual suavity, addiesscd them in this way : 
— " How do we know that this may not be the last time 
of our all thus assembling around the same table?" 

NiLUS, we say, had contrived to escape from this 
slaughter. A rugged path, unused, and which was held 
sacred, led up from this lower ground to the heights of 
the holy mountain. By this way some of the monks, 
and he among them, had sought safety. But how was 
it that he could thus abandon his son, whom he saw 
bound and led away, and destined to he knew not what 
terrible fate — a iate worse than death? The father's 
explanation of the conflict between his personal fears, 
the instinctive love of life, and the impulses of parental 
affection, does not serve to bring him into view as a 
hero. We must understand him as meaning that his too 
hasty feet ran away with the reluctant body and the 
better mind, carrying the entire man in the direction of 
safety ! Those who break themselves away from the 
ordinary trials of life at the impulse of their personal 
tastes, and for realizing some romantic conception of un- 
earthly felicity, are very likely to fail on the first occasion 
that makes a sudden demand upon their manly courage, 
and their willingness to suffer for the rescue of others. 
It was no want of sensibility or of affection, in this good 
man ; but there had been a miscalculation of his own 
moral forces, which had led him into a position in which 
lie failed to do his part. In pui-suit of the dream of a 
hermit's tranquil life, he had rent the ties of natural 
affection towards a wife and a daughter; but here, in the 
hour of danger, he runs for his life — he scrambles up a 
precipitous ascent, while at each turn of the path he 
looks back, and thence catches a last ijlance of his son, 
who is led off by savages! 



184 ESSAY III. 

When at length these bandits had reth-ed with their 
booty and their captives, and all was again silent and safe 
in the gloomy wady, the surviving brethren descended 
from the craggy heights, and hastened— it was before 
dawn of the next morning — to perform the last offices to 
the slain. All but one-— the senior of the fraternity, had 
been a long while dead ; but he Avas still conscious, and, 
it is said, he was able to address to his brethren the quan- 
tity of a paragraph, or more, of scriptural consolation. Let 
us not imagine, said he, that some strange thing had 
happened to himself and to them. It was the way with 
Satan thus to ask of God that the faithful should be 
given into his hand for undergoing an extremity of trial. 
Think of Job ; and think of the exceeding great reward 
which God has in store for recompensing the virtue of 
his faithful servants. Thus having spoken, the old man 
kissed his brethren, and breathed out his spirit. While 
it was still dark, he and the others were committed to 
the earth. 

-The brethren were still on the spot, conferring one 
with another, when a youth, running breathless, and in 
extreme agitation, came up. He had been carried away 
Avith the son of Nilus, and with him had been doomed 
to die that very morning. Both were to be slaughtered 
as victims offered, by the barbarians, to their obscene 
divinity : he had got the knowledge of their intention — 
he had seen the horrid preparations which they had al- 
ready completed— the altar and the fagots. "Unless," 
said he to his comj^anion, " unless we can effect our escape 
instantly, we neither of us shall see the light of another 
day." For himself, he had resolved to attempt it; not 
so his fellow-prisoner, Theodulus, who, more overcome 
with bodily fear, and better sustahied, perhaps, by reli- 



I 



NILUS. 136 

gioiis motives, detennined to iiwait his fate, let it be 
wliat it might. The other, seeing that the savages were 
now lost in sleep, after their drunken revels, slipt away, 
crawling out beyond the bounds of the encampment, and 
tlien starting up — his heels winged with terrors, he had 
readied the i)lace where now they met. How often 
have a man's pair of heels — so thought this youth — done 
him a better service in an extremity than a legion of 
guards could have rendered ! 

The narrative which follows, and the description of the 
truculent doings of the barbarians of the desert, and the 
l)atience in suifering, and the joy in death of hermits, 
old and young — these adventures are beside our present 
purpose. But whether these narrations may be taken 
as authentically given or not, the descriptions which 
occur in them of the desert scenery are quite true to 
fact, and the incidents also are highly characteristic, as 
well of the region itself, as of the marauding Bedoidn 
manners ; only that the wild Arab of that age was no 
doubt a more savage and sanguinary creature than are 
his descendants of the present time. For not only has 
the prophet of Mecca humanized, to a great extent, the 
rude men of the wilderness, but their relations with 
surrounding governments have become more intimate, 
and have had the same tendency. 

The instances are not of infrequent occurrence in 
the ascetic biographies, of those who, in meeting a vio- 
lent death, suddenly, and at an early age, drew comfort 
and courage too from this source, namely, that thus 
dying, and then dying, the athletic experiment was with 
them broken off at an auspicious moment. " Death," 
says a young martyr, " finds me a\ ith my vows unbroken, 
and my virtue safe, and my title to a heavenly inheritance 



136 ESSAY III 

not forfeited. That eternal reward for the sake of which, 
and to earn which, I have endured years of hardship, 
and have inflicted upon myself so much suffering, shall 
all be mine ! yes, it is mine ; and now I go to claim it." 
A feeling like this is indicated in an instance which here 
occurs, and elsewhere we find it more fully expressed. 
Let us say that our modern and our Protestant theo- 
logy is offended by this language ; but let us admit, 
also, that a life of self-denial and an early death, 
welcomed on the ground of a full faith in things " unseen 
and eternal," even though it may involve some doctrinal 
misapprehensions, should be tenderly rebuked by those 
whose own dispositions, and whose style of discoursed 
and whose modes of life give a very ambiguous evi- 
dence as to the firmness or the sincerity of their belief 
of a heaven to com.e. 

The distracted father, informed, to this extent — but 
not fully instructed as to the fate of his Theodulus, who 
Avas in the hands, and at the mercy of savage men, if J| 
not already — which, indeed, was the better supposition ■ 
— slaughtered, gave utterance to the tortures of his 
heart in loud wailings. He allowed himself to imagine 
all kinds of horrors that might have attended the last 
hours of the youth ; or in thinking of him — a tenderly 
trained boy as he was, as now vainly striving to obey 
the unreasonable commands of a ruthless master ; — he is 
buffeted, he is torn with the lash, he is cut and maimed ; 
at this very moment how might he be uttering fruitless 
cries, and pleading for mercy with those who knew of 
none! 

In the midst of these lamentations — tearless, for he 
could not weep — Nilus was at once silenced, and w^as 
put to shame, by the more masculine, and, as he thought, 



NILUS. 



137 



the more Christian-like behaviour and language of a 
woman ! The incident, even although we should strip 
the narrative of its theatrical and rhetorical decorations, 
is quite characteristic of the times with which just now 
we are conversant ; and in tmth, even in its tone of 
exagi^eration, it brings before us a very significant point 
of difference between the Christian feeling of the fifth 
century and that of the nineteenth. With us, of this 
time, the vivid belief of "an inheritance incorruptible, 
undefiled, and unfiiding— reserved in heaven," has be- 
come commingled in all possible modes of indefinite 
speculation, and of iterated formalism, and of unmean- 
ing sentimentality, with that utter non-belief in any 
such futurity which we find around us. Who shall 
say, even as to his own habitual states of mind, when 
he looks beyond the last hours of his earthly course— 
who shall sayliow far the atheistic indifference of those 
with whom,\hrough. life, lie has been conversing daily, 
has availed to tliicken that cloud which the eye of faith 
would penetrate ? 

It was not so— it was far otherwise with our Chris- 
tian predecessors of the early ages. With them— or 
with those of them who were sincere, simple-hearted, 
and devout— with such persons, the hope of the Gos- 
pel—the hope of a blissful resurrection of the body— 
the well-defined immortality that had so lately been 
brought to light by Christ (or had been brought to the 
lightj held its entireness— its clear and palpable inte- 
grity, free from all abatements, from all admixtures with 
contrary doctrines or beliefs. That which the believers 
of those early times saw ranged in opposition to the 
Christian idea and hope of the life eternal— that which 
the believing men, and women, and children of those ages 



138 



ESSAY III. 



looked at as confronting them— the host that mantled 
the mount Ebal of that age— was the foul and the fool- 
ish paganism of the bygone ages of ignorance. It was 
therefore, as aided by a contrast so forcible as this, and 
so unambiguous, that the Christian confessors of the 
martyr times met so well a fieiy death : and it was the 
same divine faith, perpetuated and sent forward through 
a century or two, that served to give vitality to the 
ascetic community, or to those of this class whom we 
may think of as worthy of our sympathies. But we 
return to the narrative before us : — another aspect of 
the same subject will present itself in the course of the 
following Essay. 

The widowed mother of the youth whom we have 
just referred to, and who had met his death joyfully, 
though inflicted with tortures, was near at hand where 
these surviving hermits were assembled. When she 
heard— and heard in all its details— of the martyr-deathj 
of her young son, she uttered no lamentation, but, re- 
tiring awhile, she put on her jewels and her gayest 
attire, and, returning, stood forth as if joyous, prepared 
to take her part in some festal ceremony. Lifting her j 
hands to the heavens, she addressed her Saviour God in* 
language of thanksgiving— language which, if it were 
more brief than it is, and also less rhetorical, would 
inspire a greater confidence than it does in its authenti- 
city. But whether it be strictly authentic, or too much 
enlarged and decorated, it may be taken as character- 
istic of the style and feelings of the times. This Chris- 
tian mother had dedicated the youth — her only son, to 
the Lord; and now she received with exultation the 
evidence that the trust had been' accepted, and that the 
obligation was fully satisfied. The youth— all entire as 



NILUS. IS^ 



he w:i^ in his vONVs-bis continence— his athletic vir- 
tues, had touoiit tlie -ood tight oflaith ; he had met the 
eneniv, and ho had conquered ; and now slie, his mother, 
mi<>-ht think herself a sharer in his triumphs. With his 
pure and faultless soul he has gone up to the fruition 
of joy. " His death is also my reward— his wounds are 
niv cVown. My son, if thy body had found room for 
more stripes than were intiicted upon thee, so much the 
more would have been thy recompenses ; grant me then, 
give me back a portion of thy reward, in payment for 
the pains I endured at thy birth !" She claims to share 
his glories and his rewards; she had suffered on her 
pai% heon his; he had endured extreme, but brief tor- 
tures ; she, in thus vanquishing the maternal instincts, 
and in thus compelling herself to hear mimoved, as a 
mother, the recital of his death, had endured a worse 
pain; and hers must be a lasting anguish. "lam m- 
wardly rent, I am torn, I am tormented, and must en- 
dure these pains so long as I live. Not such a mother 
am I as are the multitude of women, who, in losing their 
offspring, are AN'ont to make the air ring with their 
lamentadons ; they— weeping at the death of a child as 
if they were the mothers of the bodies only— the limbs, 
the flesh, the blood ! all their thoughts are centred upon 
earth, and its cares, its pains, its hopes ; no wonder, 
therefore, that in this their ignorance of a better life, they 
thus bewail their loss— for it is the loss of all. It is not 
so with me ; am I not the mother of the soul ? I do not 
rend my garments; I do not tear my naked bosom and 
my face with my nails ; I do not pull out my hair by 
handfuls ! Thou livest, my son— livest with God, to die 
no more ; and with thee shall I also live, soon as this 
frail body falls to earth. Happiest of mothers am T, who 



140 ESSAY III. 

have borne so noble an agonist, and Lave thus returned 
him — whole and triumphant — to God !" 

We thus briefly render the purport of this Spartan 
mother's long apostrophe to her martyred son ; — to give 
it more at length would not be serviceable. There is, 
however, one suggestion w^iich we should not omit to 
gather from it. If, indeed, it were a solitary or a rare 
instance, the inference we have in view w^ould not be 
warrantable ; but, in fact, this episode in the narrative of 
NiLus is one of a kind of which the instances frequently 
occur in the records of the early ages. By this time, 
and, in truth, at a time much antei'ior to this, Chris- 
tianity had wrought its effect with great power upon 
the mind and character of woman, and it had efiectively 
and for ever lifted her from her abasement, -and had 
placed her in her due position of spiritual equality with 
man — if not of companionship. The first requisite in 
that renovation of the social system which the Gospel 
was to bring about for the world, is— the moral equality, 
and the rightful influence of woman ; — an equality and 
an individual development of mind, and an energy of the 
purest aflections, which forbid the degradation of the 
sex, either in the oriental manner, or in that of ancient 
Greece, and which, irrespectively of prohibitions or of 
decrees of Councils, renders polygamy impossible wher- 
ever Christianity prevails. In the next following Essay 
the same subject will again come into view, and we now 
pass it ; only saying this, that, little as we may relish 
the declamatory style or the vaunting tone of this Chris- 
tian widow on this occasion, and open as her harangue 
may be to criticism, on the score alike of good taste and 
of sound theology, this is certain, that a bright and 
firm belief of the immortality which is set before us in 



NILUS. 141 

the Go^jpel had so become a fixed habitude of the female 
mind within the Christian conmiunity, as to give to tlie 
weaker sex that one coiinterbaUiucing element of power, 
in rehition to the stronger sex, which is compatible with 
its gentleness, with its style, with its characteristic quali- 
ties, as feminine. Emboldened, and yet not made bold 
— strengthened, but not rendered masculine— by the 
vivid consciousness of her individual relationship to 
Christ her Saviour, and by the bright assurance of innnor- 
tality— woman— the Christian wife, mother, sister, 
dano-hter — now surrounds herself with a nimbus of the 
light of heaven, without any compromise of those graces 
which are her own, as the grace of this world ; and so 
long as she understands her place, and is worthy to fill 
it, tile truth has a threefold weight of meaning w^hen 
applied to the Christian woman— that godliness is to her 
indeed " a great gain." 

The remaining adventures of Nilus in the desert are 
soon told, if we note only such facts as seem to be 
characteristic of the time. We have said (p. 115) that 
this narrative is free from those offensive admixtures of 
miracle which so much disparage most of the patristic 
Avritings of the fourth and following centuries. Greatly 
has NiLus the advantage in this respect, when he is put 
in comparison with Jerome, and even with Augustine. 
We need not specify, as an exception to this praise, 
what he affirms concerning the bodies of some of the 
monks who had been slaughtered by the barbarians. 
As to some of them, he says, that five days had elapsed 
since their death, and yet that no sensible corruption 
had taken place ; there was no effluvium, no discolora- 
tion, nor had the bodies become a prey to beast or bird. 
He says that one of those who v>ere mortally wounded 



1^2 ESSAY III, 

Still survived ; if so, then others might oiil}^ recently 
have expired, and the survivors might have been able 
to keep at bay the vulture and the jackal. Be this as 
it might, this is certain, that some of Nilus's contempo- 
raries, the writers of ascetic memoirs, would not have 
been content with affirming the mere fact of the integrity 
of these sacred corpses, but would, moreover, have 
assured us that exquisite perfumes floated on the breeze 
far and near around them, and that a hovering effulgence 
had guarded the dead from the beast and the bird. 
The absence of any such decorations in this instance 
aflbrds us a reasonable ground of confidence as to the 
general truthfulness of the narrative. 

It was contrary to existing treaties, as between the 
Christian recluses and the Bedouin sheikhs, that the 
brethren had been thus ill-treated ; the marauders were 
m fact lawless bandits ; and their violences, when made 
known to the chief who claimed authority over them 
and over the district, called forth an utterance of his 
wrath and his grief In the end, reparation, so far as 
might be possible, was made to the survivors, who were 
kindly received by the chief. In reaching his quarters, 
an eight days' journey, often reckoned at twelve, across 
the desert, was to be undertaken, in the course of which 
the usual suffering from thirst was to be endured. At 
length, when all were near to perishing — men and beasts, 
the nearness of water is announced ; tliere is a rush 
forward toward it ; there would be a scramble when it 
was reached. Nilus, not less eager than his com- 
panions to slake his thirst, yet would not compromise 
the gravity and dignity of his deportment, by quickening 
his pace so far as to derange his costume. Not too old 
to run with others, if he had pleased to do so, he was 



NILUS. 143 

too regardful of sacred decoriuns to attempt it. Never- 
theless, and iiotwitlKstaiuliiig his well-measured paces, 
he was the lirst to catch a sight of the pool or well. In 
ascending a hill he beheld the object of desire, but saw, 
with dismay, a party of wild Arabs crouching around 
it. The travelling party soon came up, and then the 
question was, which company should run for their 
lives ? A few moments of hesitation, and these barba- 
rians, measuring the array of the party, snatched 
up their arms, left their provisions, and made off. 
What rejoicing, what libations, what feasting now 
ensued ! 

Thus refreshed, the journey's end was soon attained; 
and after a brief suspense and an eager quest — this way 
and that,"in the crowd, the father and the son met each 
other's glance, and w^ere locked in each other's arms. 
The youth had been spared and redeemed, and had now 
found the kindest treatment, and position too, among 
Christian men. 

But in the midst of his joys, did not the father re- 
proach himself for all that his son had endured ? He 
did so. Why had he brought this boy away from the 
security and the good things of the city, the place of his 
birth, where no thought of danger, or of disturbance, 
or of want ever troubled him, to take up his comfortless, 
precarious abode in a howling wilderness, the haunt of 
lawless and savage men ? Why indeed, we may well 
ask, had a tender fiither done this ? and why, though he 
does not put this other question to his conscience, why 
bad he forsaken his public duties, and rent his domestic 
ties ? We can only say, in answer, that when religious 
motives come in to lend their force to personal whims 
or to romantic fancies, there is no extravagance in con- 



144 



ESSAY III. 



duct which we may not look for as the consequence of 
such a combination. 

It is soon demanded of the youth, Theodulus, that he 
should recount his adventures from the dark hour of the 
barbarian onslaught to the present moment. This narra- 
tive may be reported in substance, shorn of its embellish- 
ments, as follows ; The young man excuses himself from 
repeating what the companion of his captivity had 
already related, or how it was that the two were await- 
ing their fate, all things ready for a foul immolation to 
be effected before sunrise ; the altar, the knife, the liba- 
tion, the incense, the cup— all was ready; nor was a 
rescue from their fate to be expected unless God should 
come in to the help of the helpless. Escape by flight 
might be possible, but how uncertain, with these savage 
men around them on every side, and in the depth of an 
unknown wilderness, which was outstretched between 
them and any place of safety. One who should attempt 
to find his path over the hard, pathless rocks, needed, 
not so much human skill, as a power of divination. Yet 
the one of these youths, venturous and active, made his 
choice for flight ; the other, as he says, broken in spirit, 
threw himself upon the earth, and there looked for a 
ray of hope, if it might be found, in thought and prayer. 

" While we are in security, and address ourselves to 
prayer, how does our foolish mind take its circuit among 
the things of life ! What images court the idle fancy ! 
Ideas of trade, and voyages ; we are building houses ; 
we are planting groves ; we are contracting marriages ; 
we are actually married ; we set out on expeditions ; 
we think of gains, of judgments, markets, courts, thrones, 
oflicers ; we avenge ourselves upon our enemies; we 
meet our friends; we join in festivities; we exercise 



NILUS. 145 

public functions, and we manage our liome affiiirs ; ay, 
and we fancy ourselves seated upon the throne of im- 
perial power ! Yes ; but it is otherwise in the dark 
hour of danger and dismay. In such an hour the stern 
aspect and pressure of some extreme calamity drives 
the sold in upon itself ;— thought is digested— it runs no 
more astray. In submissive tones ^ve address our pray- 
ers to God, even to the Almighty, who in the midst of 
the most desperate sorrows is able, as with a nod, and 
in the twinkling of an eye, to bring in deliverance for 
us ! To Him did I then make my humble supplication." 
Tliis prayer, as we find it reported or manufactured, 
has its eloquence ; but the one characteristic which we 
note, just now, is the readiness, the copiousness, and the 
pertinence of the scriptural references which make up 
the body of it. A weU-taught youth, in these days of 
the Bible, would not, in this respect, excel this Theodu- 
lus of the fifth century. Wander as they might, our 
Christian predecessors of that time were thoroughly 
conversant with holy Scripture ; and they paid it all 
respect, and they appealed to it, and to no other author, 
ities. 

The companion of Theodulus had trusted his life to 
his bodUy powers. " He has put his trust in his heels : 
I put my trust in the Almighty : let it not seem, in the 
event, as if his confidence were better than mine!" 
The youth was thus praying, with tears and cries, when 
the barbarians suddenly awoke, and, to their dismay, 
beheld the sun already risen! They had overslept 
themselves ; the canonical hour for the intended sacri- 
fice was gone by ; and besides, there, must be two vic- 
tims, but one had escaped, and where was he ? None 
could say. Then did the spirit of the youth return to 



146 ESSAY III. 

him ~ God had come down for his deliverance, at least 
for the present moment, and he might behold the light 
and breathe the air of another day. To no further vio- 
lence was he then subjected, but was carried to a neigh- 
bouring town, and there offered for sale. " No one 
would give my price; none thought me worth more 
than two gold pieces !'' The Arabs threatened to cut 
off his head at the next moment, unless some of the 
bystanders would give them their price. At length a 
kind-hearted somebody risked the bargain, and thus 
Theodulus is saved. He is rescued from death, and from 
slavery too, and is cherished with Christian kindness. 

The father, during the days of his anguish and uncer- 
tainty as to his son's fate, had " opened his lips to the 
Lord" — if only he might be restored to him, promising, 
on his own behalf and his son's, that thenceforward he 
should be the Lord's. The son, on his part, cheerftilly 
assents to and seconds the purpose of his father, even, in 
like manner, as the virgin daughter of Jephtha had sub- 
mitted herself to his rash vow. But now this obligation 
might be fulfilled in a mode less appalling, and more 
accordant with the spirit of the Christian system. The 
ascetic vow would fully satisfy the conditions of this 
dedication. 

Then follows what is curious in itself, and is indica- 
tive of those unwarranted refinements which had come 
in along with the ascetic philosophy : — there here occurs 
a generous parley between father and son, the purport 
of the altercation being, to make an equitable assign- 
ment of the merits and the recompenses that had been 
severally earned by the two, in passing through the suf- 
ferings and the trials of this season of affliction, and in 
doing what remained to fulfil the conditions of the vow. 



NILUS. 147 

In the first of these Essays we have protested against 
the undue mtrusion of logic hi theology ; and here we 
might find fair occasion for protesting against the intru- 
sion of what may be called arithmetic in the same. So 
are the notions and relisijious usaojes of successive a^es 
seen to sway from one extreme point to the opposite ! 
If there be fruit to be gathered from an acquaintance 
with the revolutions of opinion in past times, it will 
greatly consist in what we learn when we collate the 
swervings of the human mind in one age, with its swerv- 
ings in another age. 

^Vt length NiLUS and the young Theodulus found the 
means of squaring their accounts with each other, and 
with heaven. The good bishop into whose hands it had 
been their happiness to fall, besides his immediate hos- 
pitalities, offered them aid in their journey, if they 
should decline his uivitation to abide with them. More- 
over, he overcame the diffidence and the scruples of 
NiLUS, who at length consented to receive priest's orders 
at his hands. 

In one of the many religious houses which had lately 
been founded in the desert, westward of the Nile, and 
around or near the Natron Lakes, the father and the 
son sought and found what they now knew could not be 
secured in the peninsula of Sinai, overrun as it was by 
lawless hordes. In taking this more reasonable course 
there was, indeed, a comj)romise to be submitted to ; 
the romance of the eremitic life must be abandoned as 
impracticable ; and instead of it there was to be quietly 
accepted the non-romantic monotonies, the personal 
restraints, the imposed rules and forms of a monastery, 
as well as the annoyances of a life-long imprisonment 
with a company of persons collected from various quar- 



148 ESSAY III. 

ters, and themselves of various moral quality, whose 
vi^aywardness, and humours, and infirmities, and even- 
incurable vices, must be borne with ; and all this must 
be endured within the narrow and gloomy limits of 
religious fortress, in the heart of a scorching wilder-' 
ness. 

Nevertheless it was here, and as abbot, and as writer, 
that NiLUS found, or made for himself, as an energetic 
spirit will not fail to do, the highest and the choicest 
earthly good : — it was not meditative quietude — it was 
not that spiritual luxuriousness which at first he had 
aimed at ; — but it was a field, and a large field, of useful 
Christian labour. 

Of what sort chiefly these labours were, the extant 
writings of Nilus give us sufficient evidence; or perhaps, 
without indulging too far in unproved conjectures, we 
might say that, just now, we have evidences of another 
kind under our eyes. Within these few years past thej 
stores of the British Museum have been enriched by 
inestimably valuable manuscripts, recovered from the 
forgotten heaps of the monasteries of the Natron Lakes. 
A precious sample of these treasures — just given to the 
world, and consisting of fragments of the Gospels, of 
high antiquity, may fairly be looked at in the light of its 
probable connection with the subject of this Essay. Ni- 
Lus, himself intimately conversant with holy Scripture, 
and holding it in profoundest veneration — himself also a 
man of learning — a disciple of Chrysostom — such a man, 
when he found himself at the head of a ISTitrian monas- 
tery, and looked up to as the adviser of the monks of 
the monasteries of the district, would he not promote, 
with his utmost zeal, those labours of transcription which 
already were carried on in these religious houses ? We 



NILUS. 



149 



can believe nothing less than that it must have been his 
delight — his recreation, to visit the rooms where the 
copyists were at work, and to cheer and sui)erintend 
their labours. Be it that, in saying this, and in believing 
this, we advance more than we can make good by posi- 
tive evidence. From the ground of these surmises we 
turn to the extant writings of our Nilus— abbot of one 
of these monasteries. 

At the moment when, as we have said, the Prefect 
turned himself away from the turmoils and the pomps of 
the imperial city, his only thought was that of entering 
upon the delights, so pure and so tranquil, of a stony 
paradise in the solitudes of Sinai. But from this dream 
he was rudely awakened, as we have seen, at an early 
time, by an onslaught of .real perils, real sufferings and 
privations, and of real griefs and cares. Yet this school- 
ing yielded to him, in due time, much of " the peaceable 
fruits of righteousness." Nilus, as is manifest from his 
writings, had become familiarly conversant with holy 
Scripture ; he had also listened to Chrysostom ; he had 
deliberately made his choice as between this world and 
the next ; and now, having at length learned what he 
had needed to learn in a course of suffering, and having 
convinced himself that his first project was impracticable, 
he betook himself to that mode of the ascetic life which 
he found to be best suited to his habits and his strength, 
and also more likely to allow of his making himself useful 
to others. 

In his position as abbot he became known, far and 
near, as an experienced, and a wise, and fiiithful guide 
in the exercises of the religious life. Many had recourse 
to him in this capacity — some by personal intercourse, 
and many by letter. To these he rephed in a brief, 



150 ESSAY III. 

pointed, and pertinent style; and a sample of these 
" answers to correspondents " fills a folio volume. More 
than a thousand of these epistles, addressed to more than 
seven hundred individuals, persons of all orders— monks, 
deacons, presbyters, bishops, abbots, and secular persons 
— are in our hands : we are assuming this collection to 
be genuine. 

This good man found leisure, moreover, for composing 
various tracts and treatises, longer and shorter, most of 
them, as to their immediate intention, relating to the 
motives and the practices of the ascetic life. These also 
are of quantity sufficient to fill— version and notes inclu- 
sive, a bulky folio. These various compositions give evi- 
dence of the writer's deej)-felt and unfeigned piety, his 
keen good sense, and his correct judgment in questions 
of conduct and temper ; of his independence also, and 
his plain-spoken faithfulness, and of his knowledge of 
holy Scripture, and also of the world, and of human na- 
ture. As to his asceticism, we hold it to be a mistake, 
but it was the fashion of the times, and just now we 
take no account of it. What we do take account of is 
that which is no fashion, or whim, of any one age, and 
which is wholly irrespective of the rise and fall of reli- 
gious parties, and of those fortunes and misfortunes of 
the Chi-istian commonwealth wherewith the passions 
and the ambition of the foremost men of the age were 
concerned, and which fill out the bulk of what is called 
church history. 

The extant epistles of Nilus were (as we have said) 
addressed to more than seven hundred individuals, and 
these persons, or most of them, were either the inmates 
of the neighbouring religious houses, or they were men 
in secular offices, or they were the clergy of the churches 



NILUS. 151 



of the surrounding districts or provinces. To some of 
tliese he administers rebukes Avith the utmost freedom, 
and even shaipness, and yet with discriminaTion ; to the 
nugatory questions of some he returns a few lines of 
pertinent reply. Some of the epistles are of little or no 
value in any sense ; but after setting these off, there re- 
mains a large number, perhaps the greater number of 
the whole, that administer spiritual advice to religious 
persons who had sought it from him in humility and 
sincerity. 

What is it, then, that we ought to infer from these 
letters of advice? It is this: that in an age of wide- 
spread disorder, an age of theological contention, of 
shameless ambition among churchmen, and of growing 
superstition, there were many — there were more than 
here and there a one or two — who, in the obscurity and 
silence of monasteries, and also of private life, were 
cherishing that life of the soul which is the true begin- 
ning on earth of a blissful immortality, and who, with 
conscientious carefulness, were striving to bring their 
dispositions and their conduct into conformity with the 
mind of the Saviour Christ. And now let us ask what 
it is among the interests and the occupations of this brief 
and troubled life that ought to be thought of as real, and 
substantial, and good ; what is it that, after a long expe- 
rience of the things of life, and an enjoyment, too, of 
many of its delights, what is it which we come to think 
and to speak of, to those who will listen, as indeed worthy 
to be sought after and desired — what, but those dispo- 
sitions, those affections, those tempers, and those courses 
of behaviour which, under the Divine discipline and 
guidance, are the fruit of daily assiduity in the religious 
life? 



Dark ages, or bright ages, and through times of slug- 
gish movement, and through times of progress and 
energy, and while the visible course of the world's 
affairs is prosperous, and while it is tempestuous, and 
let church historians make a good report, or let them 
make an ill report of " a century," still it is always true 
that a host of souls, unreported of in any chronicle or 
census, even a "great multitude" of human spirits, is in 
training for their places in a kingdom that is not of 
this world. 



ESSAY IV. 

PATJXA: — HIGH QUALITY AND ASCETICISM IN THE 
FOURTH CENTURY. 

As a test of the quality of the ChristiaMty of any age 
or people, or of any small community, we might take 
this indication of it — namely, the bearing it is seen to 
take upon the relative position of the sexes. We are 
told that " in Christ," that is to say, under the Christian 
dispensation, and when this is in its genuine condition, 
there is " neither male nor female ;" and inasmuch as 
the sacred proprieties of the domestic relationships, and 
the duties and offices of husband and wife, parents and 
children, masters and servants, are very carefully insisted 
upon throughout the apostolic writings, this must mean 
— not that duties and decorums are forgotten, but that 
there is a higher and a spiritual sense in which all those 
differences and all those inequalities which attach to the 
present state are merged and cease to be appreciable, as 
related to those unchanging realities which belong to 
the life eternal. 

If this be the meaning of the apostolic rule, then we 
may conclude it to be certain that, whenever and wher- 
ever the Christianity of a people so takes effect upon the 
male and the female halves of society as to divorce and 
disjoin them religiously, or in respect of their highest and 
their spiritual welfare, such a system, or the so-called 
Christianity of a people, has got out of course ; as, for 

7* 



er, 

1 



154 ESSAY IV. 

instance, if the so-called Christianity of a people is such 
that it secures the attachment of few except the women, 
the children, the infirm, and the aged ; and if it is almost 
exclusively, as towards these, that the ministers of reli- 
gion are required to exercise their functions, while adult 
males, with rare exceptions, stand aloof from it, either 
in indifference or in contempt; if things be so, there 
can be no room to doubt that the substance having 
long ago been lost from the people's " form of godli- 
ness," a specious exterior is all, or nearly all, that now 
remains to them. Or if, to take up a very different, or 
an opposite supposition. Christian belief, in its power, 
so takes effect upon the male and the female mind as 
sunder that which " God has joined together," thei 
and in such a case, a deep-going error, whatever it maj 
be, has commingled itself with principal truths, and con- 
sequently that much confusion has been let in upon^_ 
the social economy, and upon the domestic relation^B 
ships. Thus it was in the times which just now are iinder 
our notice : to what extent it was so we may best see^ 
in taking up single instances, or such instances as ar^ 
reported to us authentically, and with sufficient ampl9 
tude. 

Yet let the reader understand what is my purpose 
this Essay, which, as in the last, is this, that while w( 
note errors incidentally as we go, we aim to bring out to 
view whatever is true, and true alike in every age, and 
which is, or may be fruitful of instruction, to those who 
will think so, in all times. 

What has been advanced in the preceding Essay con- 
cerning the simple-hearted Nilus has been gathered 
from his own narrations, and from his extant letters, 
and from his other writings ; but now we have no choice 




PAULA. 155 



but to sift a laudatory memoir, in dealing with which 
we must discharge a mass of niagnilociuence and affec- 
tation. It is the learned and the facund Jerome who is 
our authority. AVhile at Rome he had become known 
to more than a few Christian ladies of quality, toward 
whom he acted as their spiritual adviser. With some 
of these ladies he maintained correspondence after his 
retirement to Bethlehem ; and some of them followed 
him to Palestine, and established themselves in religious 
houses not remote from his monastery. Among these 
was the high-born and illustrious lady, the " Paula, 
saint, and widow, and abbess," as we find her named in 
the Romish and Eastern calendars. 

Picked from out of some half-dozen of Jerome's epis- 
tles, the biography of this lady-ascetic is briefly this : — 
By parentage and by marriage also she stood related to 
the ancient aristocracy of Rome; the great historic names 
of the republican times shed a splendour upon her house : 
so we are told. Ample revenues, moreover, were hers : 
— Nobilis genere, sed multo nobilior sanctitate : potens 
quondam divitiis, sed nunc Christi paupertate insignior. 
And we must infer that the family estates or revenues, 
or a large portion of them, instead of having been sur- 
rendered or alienated when she retired from the world, 
continued to be at her disposal, for to the last she was 
a builder of churches and a founder of monasteries. 

Paula, rich and noble, had married early. Her hus- 
band, as rich and noble as herself, had died, leaving a 
son and four daughters to the care of their mother, her- 
self still young. Of these daughters one, named Eusto- 
chium, has taken a place in the saint-list of the Churches, 
and is known especially as the disciple and the favoured 
correspomlcnt of Jerome. She was a lady so learned. 



156 ESSAY IV, 

that this great writer did not hesitate to address to her 
some of the most important of his critical and ethical 
writings. At the time when she lost her husband, Paula 
was, ill mind and habit, in and of the world : her widow- 
hood dated from her thirty-second year. This sharp 
affliction threw her into the society of a " holy widow" 
and a severe ascetic, then highly reputed in the Chris- 
tian circles of Rome. Yielding herself to the guidance 
of this friend, she sought and found an assuagement of 
those griefs that are earthly only, in an absolute dedica- 
tion of herself, body and soul, to God — a vow, made in 
conformity with the fashion of the times. This dedica- 
tion implied, first, a vow not to contract a second mar- 
riage ; and then the adoption of those austerities to 
which so much merit and importance had come to be 
attached in the opinion of the ancient Church. 

Rome was, at that time, as always it has been, a cen- 
tre, visited by holy bishops from far and near ; and so it 
happened that the wealthy Paula (such things do not 
belong exclusively to one age, but meet us in every age) 
thought herself only too much honoured, and the most 
happy of women, when these reverend persons conde- 
scended to be her guests. In converse with some of 
these (among them was the noted Epiphanius of Cyprus) 
she had listened, wdth intensity of feeling, to glowing 
descriptions of the holy places of Palestine, and the 
neighbouring Bible countries. Her enthusiasm had 
become inflamed ; and her longing desire to set foot 
upon the sacred soil, and to kneel at altars, and to kiss 
footprints, had risen to a pitch of irresistible impatience. 
The passion for pilgrimage had become so strong that 
no obligations, no natural ties, no maternal instincts, 
could restrain it: it had possessed itself of her soul. 



PAULA 



1:57 



Some of the holy bisliops with whom she had conversed, 
and wlio had been her guests, were now retnrning to 
then- se^ in the East. The zealous polemic, Epiphanius 
of Cyprus, was about to do so. Paula took her pas- 
sage in the vessel in which these bishops were about to 
embark. Her near relatives, and her surviving children, 
attended her to the water's edge: her son, still quite 
young, and conscious of his need of a mother's care at 
Rome, clung to her, and, with floods of tears and loud 
entreaties, besought her not to desert him ; or at least 
to delay a little while the rending of this tie. But the 
Roman lady — the descendant of heroic patricians, is of 
firmer mould of mind than to be thus turned from her 
purpose ; a young mother's eyes are moistened by no 
tears while she looks heavenward, and, stifling nature, 
obeys, as she thinks, the call of heaven — ilia siccos ten- 
debat ad ccelum oculos, pietatem in Alios pietate in Deum 
superans. But why should she not read the will of 
heaven where it is written in the Book— written plainly 
enough? Yet just now we keep another purpose in 
view, and are not intending to find fault, but to find 
Christian energies. Auspicious winds filled the sails, and 
the heights of Cyprus soon came into view. Paula and 
her dausrhter, Eustochium— and she, with her new vows 
upon her, and both of them dead to the world, as they 
thought (in intention they were so) and cut ofl" from its 
gentle aftections, set foot on the island where churches 
and monasteries had everywhere supplanted temples. 

After a short stay with the holy bishop, the mother 
and the daughter — or, as we should now say — the two 
" sisters," the elder and the younger — embarked anew, 
soon to set an impatient foot upon the sacred shore of 
Palestine. We should gain little of entertainment, and 



158 



ESSAY IV. 



little of edification, in following these ladies, as they 
passed from spot to spot throughout Palestine— Jerome 
their guide, or at least the learned expositor,^nd the 
journalist of the tour. At Bethlehem, near to him, she 
at length fixed her abode. For three years it was 'in a 
roadside public-house— angusto per triennium mansit 
hospiteolo— but afterwards she estabUshed herself in a 
commodious monastery, which she had caused to be 
constructed near at hand, and into which many devoted 
women were in course of time admitted. 

In her journeys throughout Palestine, and in her fre- 
quent visitations of the religious houses and the hermit- 
ages, far and near, in Egypt and in the Arabian desert, 
this Roman lady, who heretofore had been wont to 
travel in a luxurious palanquin, borne on the shoulders 
of eunuchs, was content to ride upon an ass ; and she 
did this under the fervours of the sun of Syria and 
of Egypt. Before her departure from Italy she had 
adopted, and had learned to endure, those austerities 
which were the conditions and the characteristics of the 
"ascetic philosophy." We are assured that from the 
moment of her vow she never sat at table with a man- 
no, not even a holy bishoi^— nor ever spoke with any 
man otherwise than in public. She eat no meat ; she 
abstained from fish, eggs, honey, and wine : oil she used 
only on hohdays : she lay upon a stone floor, with a 
sackcloth mat. Her time was spent in prayer, in alms- 
giving, in visitations of the sick ; and at length in the 
government of the religious societies which she had 
established. In these houses the strictest discipline was 
observed ; the seven times of devotion were punctually 
regarded; the Psalter, entire, was daily recited: the 
dietary was of the very simplest kind, and the fosts 



PAULA. 



159 



were severe and frequent. All the nuns wore the same 
sombre habit, and all took their turn in performing the 
menial offices of the house. In a word, the ascetic regi- 
men, which in all times has been very much the same in 
its visible aspect, and in its severities, was, in this in- 
stance, if we may take the extant records of it as our 
trustworthy authority, fully realized. 

We have already said that this Roman lady retained 
her patrimonial wealth: it must have been so; for in 
addition to extensive almsgiving, practised in and around 
her establishments, she built churches and monasteries, 
very many ; and in doing so she gave evidence of her 
consistency and her good sense, for she excluded all 
costly decorations from them. The church, or the 
monastery, was so constructed, and was so furnished, 
and so embellished, as that it should best subserve its 
professed purposes, namely, the promotion of piety, and 
the welfare of the indigent. Thus occupied, and thus 
living m earnest, according to the light of her times, 
she passed about twenty years in her seclusion at Beth- 
lehem, and there she died, a pattern of Christian assi- 
duity and of unity of jyurpose—Xvf'm^ a life on earth 
which in all things was intended to secure the life 
eteiTial. 

With what belongs exclusively to the religious fa- 
shions of the times we have nothing now to do ; but we 
have this to say, that although it was not in the inten- 
tion or the thoughts of the Christian men and women 
of the ascetic ages, a moral process was then in course, 
to trace which, from its commencements, we must look 
back from the fifth century, five hundred years. This 
was a process which, even now, has not quite reached 
its completion; for it shall then only be complete 



160 ESSAY IV. 

when Christian principles and Cln-istian moralities shall 
thoroughly have taken effect uj^on the social system — 
that system being moulded chiefly by the influence of 
Christian women — ^^women in their sphere — not out of it. 

A page or two may suflice for setting forth what we 
here intend. 

If five hundred years be reckoned back from the times 
now in our view, they bring us into the scenes of that 
critical time when a right-hearted few among the Jewish 
people were nobly contending for Great Truths with 
the ferocious Antiochus. It was then, and it was then 
firsts that these great truths — even the main matters 
of the " law and the prophets," came to be sealed in 
blood upon the national mind; and it w^as then also that 
a glimmer, and more than a glimmer, of a bright immor- 
tality, had come to shine upon that mind. But it was 
then also that another consequence of the struggle — 
most deeply touching the well-being of the nations that 
ages afterwards were to become Chiistian — rises to view 
on the stage of religious history. It was in the course 
of that same cruel conflict that Woman first made good 
her title to be regarded as man's companion, and as 
quite his equal in moral greatness, in courage, in con- 
stancy, and in consistency : it was then that " out of the 
weakness" of her sexual disparity she not only became 
" strong," but she very often proved herself to be, as in 
all martyr times she has been — the stronger of the two ; 
and this, not in the instance of here and there a heroine, 
but, in very frequent instances, even though of the 
feeblest bodily framework. It was then, and then first, 
perhaps, that the mind of woman — quickened by the 
definite conception of a resurrection to life, even to " a 
better resurrection," thenceforward took her place as the 



PAULA. 161 



teacher and exemplar of a pure, a firm, a lofty morality ; 
she did so as wife, as mother, as sister. 

The moral results and the religious traditions of those 
times of suffering had held themselves entire, in many 
Jewish homes, throughout the years of the following 
century ; and so it was that they came up, and we 
recognize them afresh in the Gospel narratives. If there 
be anything in the wide compass of ancient history that 
— out of all question, is genuine, is true — ^it is — woman's 
part in the Gospel history. Who could then have 
imagined, and who should have invented these incidents, 
and these brief utterances of pure, deep, feminine feel- 
ing? The Jewish women of that time had not been 
moulded by Christianity; for they had already been 
created, and had received their training, in preparation 
for its arrival. The doctrine which was to give moral 
greatness, along with meekness and purity, to those 
who should receive it, lodged itself at once in the 
mature hearts of Jewish women who, in a true sense, 
were the daughters of the noble w omen of the Maccar 
bean age. 

The preparation for the Gospel, in every city of the 
Roman world, was the Judaism it found there — with its 
Holy Scripture — Moses, and the Prophets, and the 
Psalms, read every Sabbath in the synagogues. But 
this was not all ; for an order of feeling and a mode of 
conduct which neither the Grecian nor the Roman civi- 
lization could at all supply, or could imitate, were every- 
where in readiness among those women — whether Jew- 
ish or Grecian, who had long been the stated frequent- 
ers of the Sabbath services in the synagogue. Thus it 
w:is that the principal element of our modern social 
well-being — that one element which is tlie source and 



162 ESSAY IV. 

the reason of whatever is pure, and loving, and right in 
the domestic relationships, was provided for, and was 
immediately realized, in the apostolic societies. Women, 
acting in their independent moral individuality^ took 
their place as members of the Church ; and they became 
also — for services suited to them — its ministers. 

At how early a time this genuine and most auspicious 
evangelic position of woman in the Church came to be 
interfered with and lost, none can now tell us. At the 
earliest time at which our materials are more than mere 
fragments, the mischief had made great progress. Inas- 
much as the ascetic philosophy had taken up the sensu- 
ous and oriental idea of purity, and thus had actually 
sensualized, by unwisely attempting to refine, those 
feelings which are specially feminine, the tendency of it 
was again to degrade woman, and so to nullify the claim 
she had long before made valid, as able to take her 
place of companionship, and of absolute moral equality, 
by the side of man. 

And thus it w^as that another course of severe and 
long-continued suffering had become the necessary 
means of arresting the downward progress of things. 
The Antiochus of the Maccabean times found philo- 
sophic emperors and prefects — even some of the choicest 
men of imperial Rome, who were well inclined to take 
up his unfinished work. So it was that once again, in 
the unmoved endurance of " cruel mockings and scourg- 
ings" and of fiery tortures., woman — Christian woman, 
challenged anew her equality with man ; and nobly did 
she then win the praise of possessing " a like precious 
faith," and a like courage, and, if not the same bodily 
nerve, yet a strength of soul which stood proof against 
the far keener anguish which she felt, as of feebler 



PAULA 



163 



frame. So it was at a very early time, as we arc authen- 
tically told, not only by Christian memorialists, but also 
bv a Roman gentleman and pedant, Avho coldly says that 
he, and his ruffian tormenters had been quite baffled by 
the firmness of two young women of servile condition, 
whose constancy he had put to the test— all to no pur- 
pose, for he could wring no criminating confession from 

them. 

The martyr times— a two hundred years, or more, of 
intermittent suffering— reckoning from Trajan to Diocle- 
tian, had not only served to give to Christianity its 
proper attestation, but, in doing so, it had again made 
sure of this— its vitalizing principle, namely— the moral 
position of woman as man's equal in the sight of God. 
But the martyr age had now passed by, and even before 
it had reached its end, the constant tendency of the 
social system to tall out of its due equilibrium had again 
shown itself in the prevalence of those spurious notions 
of purity which never foil deeply to disturb the relation- 
ship of the sexes. Nevertheless, this disturbance (to 
make a new experiment upon which, in this age, would 
be an extreme folly) had found some compensations: 
and, in respect of those long ages of European bar- 
barism which w^ere to succeed, it subserved purposes 
which were highly important ; but these have often 
been specified. 

We return, for a moment, to the lady abbess, who, 
like our friend Nilus, soon came into a position of autho- 
rity and of extensive influence; for she not only go- 
verned the religious houses which she had founded, but 
she made periodic circuits, or, as we may call them, visi- 
tations, professedly, perhaps, for her own edification, in 
converse with the recluses ; but, no doubt, she was wel- 



164 ESSAY IV. 

corned among them as an adviser, and as one who was 
vested with a virtual authority, and who spoke as the 
superior of a large community, scattered over the lower 
Egypt, the Arabian desert, and Southern Palestine. 

NiLus, as abbot, had turned to good account the 
magisterial habits of his early life ; and his style and 
deportment, and his knowledge of the w^orld gave him 
an advantage which would soon be recognized and sub- 
mitted to. Paula, as abbess, might beHeve that she 
had laid aside, for ever, and had forgotten, the demean- 
our, the tones of voice, the graceful gestures, the instincts 
of birth, of rank, and of wealth ; but should we have 
thought so, if it had chanced to us to see her, followed 
by her bevy of nuns, as she glided forwards to her place 
in church on an Easter Sunday morning ? If we vrish 
to imagine this high-born personage of the fourth cen- 
tury, we might be aided in doing so by looking at the 
portrait of her counterpart of the seventeenth century — 
the Mother Angelica Arnauld, abbess titular of Port 
Royal ; both of them" lofty-minded women ; but in both 
of them there "dwelt richly" that "word of Christ," 
whicli, while it ennobles the meanest souls, brino-s low 
the loftiest ; that word which, in its bearing upon the 
mind, and the conduct, and the affections of w^oman, 
inspires her with a courage not at all inferior to that of 
man, and which, while it does so, abates nothing of her 
gentleness, or of that devotedness to the welfare of 
others which is especially her characteristic. 

We should not quite forget Paula's spiritual director 
through life, and her eloquent panegyrist. Jerome's 
powerful intellect, his extraordinary accomplishments, 
and his knowledge of the world ; and perhaps, also, the 
blandishments of his personal manners, when he found 



PAULA. 165 



liiniself among persons of rank, had made him the object 
of many flattering attentions from women of this chiss. 
Such were Paula and lier daughter Eustocuium, 
Everything, in this species of intercourse, was right and 
safe, and M'as far remote from scandal ; it was sanc- 
tioned by the religious notions of the times — by the 
prominent position of the parties, and by those austere 
decorums which were everywhere regarded by leading 
persons in the Church. But there w\as tlien (and the 
same ingredients in human nature will, in every age, 
show their presence) — there was then prevalent much 
of that sort of unctions adulatory interchange of 
spiritual courtesies which has place between favoured 
clerical persons, and high-born religious women. This 
style is rendered peculiar by the speciality of the con- 
ditions under which it arises ; for, just in proportion as 
it stands far removed from a touch or breath of scandal, 
it becomes so much the more intense in its own quality, 
and, whatever that quality may be, the reaction upon 
those concerned is so much the more real, as it is exempted 
from the suspicions of both by the conscious rectitude 
of each. If now it were asked on which side this pecu- 
liar influence produces its most marked results, we 
should incline to say that it is on the side of the clerical 
recipients of this purely-meant feminine devotion ; — in 
these instances the idol suffers more injury than the 
worshipper. It might not l)e very difficult to trace its 
presence in the rosy colour it sheds upon certain phases 
of doctrine, or in the smooth rhythm of our religious 
conventionalisms ; or, in the tone and style of i)ulpit, and 
still more, of platform oratory. But how has this per- 
fumed and zephyr-like adulation been accepted, in 
different times, l)y clerical persons 'i 



166 



ESSAY IV. 



Might we here indulge in sketcliing a picture or two 
which may offer some curious contrasts ? Let us think, 
then, in the first place, of the group of which Jerome's 
brief notices furnish the outlines. On a rugged, path- 
less ascent of the rocky region, which is within a day's 
jouniey of the Holy City, we see a company advancing : 
— there is that accomplished theologue — the terror of 
Vigilantius, and of all such-like heretics, but the courte- 
ous companion of orthodox ascetic ladies ; it is Jerome 
who leads the way. Under the blaze of a Syrian sum- 
mer's noon, he rides an ass ; he has drawn his monk's 
hood far enough over his face to throw his sharp, promi- 
nent features into a half shade, Avhich Rembrandt would 
have caught at. At a little distance in the rear— and 
she also riding an ass— follows the graceful descendant 
of the heroes of Livy's fabulous books : it is the lady 
Paula. She defies the scorching beams, and she wel- 
comes her sufferings as a sort of martyrdom : by her 
side, or lagging a Uttle in the rear, and she also seated 
on an ass, is the fair nun, the pupil of Jerome in 
Greek and Hebrew. She stoops and languishes, but she 
will not be girl enough to utter a petulant murmur. 
Yet it was not thus that Eustochium was used to pass 
along the broad ways of Rome : yet all now is right in 
her mind, and she enjoys inward peace : then follow 
the attendants, with a wild Arab or two, hired as 
guides and guards; these, wrapped in their mantles, 
and poising their long lances on the shoulder, muse as 
they go ; or muse not at all ; but if they do nmse, it is 
upon the whim— so unintelligible— which prompts such 
persons to endure such a journey only to gaze at 
stones ! 

If we turn from this scene, and look toward the west- 



PAULA. 167 



ern world, we may see tlie humble — the haughty, St. 
Martin lounging on a divan in the palace of a Caisar, 
his low-bred presbyters and deacons, reclining on vel- 
vet, to the right and left of him. Kneeling at his feet, 
and not daring to raise her eyes so as stedfastly to gaze 
upon the saintly visage — kneeling at the feet of this 
monk, there is an empress — and this empress all but 
spurned ! 

Xow, for the sake of a needed refreshment, shall we 
descend the stream of ages, and, brunting the chilling 
fogs of a winter's afternoon, in England, take our place 
by the roadside ? Here comes the Bedfordshire tinker 
and the roughly-used Baptist preacher ; he is mounted 
on a raw-boned mare ; he is on his way to " Meeting" 
at a five-mile-act barn, and he has consented to allow 
the farmer's wife (the fiirmer is his good deacon, and 
the sharer of his past persecutions, and she is a buxom 
person) to take her place behind him on the pillion. 
The way is long, the ruts are deep, the evening is 
cheerless ; but John Bunyan, though of social tempera- 
ment, is a shrewd man and wise; and he is a great 
master of human nature, and so he jogs on in bluff 
silence. lie hears no woman's flatteries ; probably they 
would not have been offered to him ; he invites no con- 
versation ; he Avill listen to none : he is intent upon get- 
ting a better hold of his "ninth head of discourse." 
John Bunyan has determhied to keej) himself always on 
the safe side of things. Has he not given us lively por- 
traits of Madame Wanton, and of Mrs. Inconsiderate, 
and of Mrs. Lightmind, and of others? As a minister 
lie has one rule of conduct ; it is not the ascetic rule, 
but it is not the less efficacious ; it is far more so : — it is 
puritanic ; and if we will follow him to " Meeting," 



168 



ESSAY IV. 



and will there listen to the hour-and-half sermon, we 
shall find that a consistent and high-toned morality 
IS the preacher's interpretation of that Gospel, which he 
proclaims, even as glad tidings for the "chief of 
sinners." 

Shall we come down another hundred years ? It may 
be a N-ovember evening, or it maybe a May morning- 
no matter, for the gentle and true-hearted George 
Whitefield is snugly seated by the side of that noble- 
hearted lady, the Countess of Huntingdon ; she, as pure 
as purity itself; and her clerical friend blameless, if ever 
man has been blameless ; or we may find him in her lady- 
ship's drawing-room; he is the man of the splendid 
company, although there be present the chief wits of 
the time-Chesterfield, Garrick, Littleton. What now 
IS there in all this which should call for criticism or 
serious reprehension? Nothing; and yet it may be 
permitted us to say that when the ministers of religion 
allow themselves to accept freely those warm testimonies 
of regard which their female hearers and followers are 
so prompt to render to them, they are likely to pass into 
an ambiguous mental condition, which intercepts the 
free exchange of thought between themselves and the 
men— the laymen— of their social and pastoral circles. 
Thus it comes about that sermons are composed and 
delivered which women eagerly applaud, but which men 
listen to with far less than thorough satisfaction : they 
too may applaud, for the preacher is eloquent, and they 
believe him to be sincere; yet these educated laymen 
come out of church convinced on no one questionable 
point ; and they feel that while the slender and soft ex- 
periences of female religious life. are understood, and are 
duly treated by the preacher, the hard, the arduous, the 



PAULA. 169 



perplexing, tlie titan realities of mail's course through 
this difficult world — these strong things, are either not 
grappled with at all, or they are always misunderstood, 
as a man misunderstands things which he has never seen 
otlierwise than at a distance, and through a mist. 



ESSAY Y. 

THEODOSIUS: — PAGAN USAGES, AND THE CHEISTIAN 
MAGISTRATE. 

^ Situations which, at a glance, may attract our atten- 
tion and invite comparison by their apparent similarity, 
will often, on neare^' view, instead of being identical, 
scarcely present an element of analogy. At this mo- 
ment the British Rule is, year by year, extending itself, 
as if it were never to reach its limit, and it embraces all 
races of men and all their religions. All beliefs, and 
every variety of usage are thus coming continually into 
more intimate, and therefore into more difficult, rela- 
tionship with modes of feeling which can have no sym- 
pathy therewith, and with creeds towards which the 

European mind can barely conceal its contempt, and 

as a climax of perplexity— with institutions that are 
abominable-i^that are insufferable, and that are wholly 
incompatible with even the most lax rule for the mainte- 
nance of public order. 

The British domination in India is that of a professedly 
Christian Power over subjugated heathens ;— a difficult 
position : but shall we not find some kind of guidance, 
cautionary guidance, at least, in looking back to those 
times when Christian magistrates extended, as we do 
now, the sceptre and the sword widely over pagan popu- 
lations ? There was a time when the magistrate, abso- 
lute and irresponsible as he was, and himself undoubtedly 
Christian as to his personal beliefs, issued edicts, and 



THEODOSIUS. 171 

enforced them too, over all countries around the Me- 
diterranean : and he did so while a many-coloured 
polytheism was still the profession, and gave law to the 
habits, of the great mass of the people, high and low. 
Individual emperors, from Constantine to Justinian, dif- 
fered much in ability, and in personal merits, and in 
l^osition also ; nevertheless they, or the later emperors, 
pursued a course toward the paganism of their times, 
toward the heathen populace, and toward the priests of 
the antiquated idolatries, which might be repi'esented as 
uniform and coherent, and which was such as might be 
spoken of as " a policy." 

Might not, then, that policy be spread forth to view, 
and be made use of as an exemplar which Ave should do 
well to imitate, even now, when we are called upon 
anew, by the recent course of events, to consider and to 
reconsider those principles under the guidance of which 
we intend henceforw^ard to govern countries containing 
a fifth part of the human family ? Most of these peo- 
ple are polytheists, or those of them that are monotheists 
are still more difiicult to be dealt with, for they are 
fanatics for their one truth. 

Xo doubt there are those among us who, accepting 
the commendations that are bestowed by the Church 
writers of the fourth and fifth centuries upon the pious 
and zealous emperors of those times, would, with little 
hesitation, take pattern by these Christian magistrates, 
and would even outdo them in the fervour of their en- 
deavours to trample out the smouldering fires of every 
false worship. But if a caution were needed for arrest- 
ing the course of any such zeal as this, it might soon be 
found in looking to the facts of the alleged case ; for in 
doing so, we may presently become convinced that, in 



172 ESSAY V 

almost every instance of an apparent analogy between 
the two situations, the resemblance is apj)arent only ; 
while the difference, or the contrariety, is real and 
extreme. 

These points of difference, or these contrarieties, are 
obvious, and they may be soon enumerated : they are 
such as these, and our comparison is that Avhich presents 
itself in bringing under the eye the Roman Imperial 
government, from the time of Constantine's declaration 
in favour of Christianity, to a late time, when paganism 
had everywhere gone down, as a feculent sediment, rest- 
ing at the very bottom of the social mass : or it would 
be enough if we should take as our limit the latter years 
of the reign of Justinian. 

After some small exceptive instances, belonging to 
the outskirts of the empire, have been allowed for, then 
it may be said that the master of the Roman world, for 
the time being, or its masters — east and west, ruled their 
own: the o/jcoujxsv>] was their patrimony: its centre was 
the head and the heart of a living body which, through- 
out long periods, had throbbed with one pulse, and had 
moved with one intention. The wide interpretation 
given to the right and privilege of Roman citizenship 
had related all to all, and all to the one source of power. 
The nations, diverse as they were, had now, through 
ages, looked up from the east and from the west, from 
the north and from the south, to the one resplendent 
orb of imperial wisdom, and had all kept the ear attent 
to the one voice — whether a thunder or a whisper — 
of the imperial will. The nations "under the whole 
heavens" acknowledged the 'rightfulness as well as the 
power of the imperial rule, and they gloried in its glories, 
as well as bowed their necks to its forces. 



THEODOSIUS. 173 



How can a political condition of nations, such as this, 
be brought into comparison with a condition so utterly 
unlike it as is that of the nations and races which have 
been brought to pay tribute to the Committee assembling 
in Leadenhall-street ? The difference here is such as to 
imply and to embrace all other imaginable dissimilarities, 
and it is so great as that it might be held to excuse our 
declining to institute any comparison at all between the 
two cases. Can it be rightful, or would it be politic, or 
shall it be safe, to enact in India, as from London, that 
which was enacted for the Roman world, from Constan- 
tinople ? The pagan populace in remote countries, and 
its priests, might think themselves aggrieved by certain 
edicts, or harshly-used by some over-zealous Christian 
Prefect ; but the Roman people at large — the hundred 
nations of the o/xoufxs'vy), did not feel itself aggrieved ; it 
was their own Caesar who had spoken. Everything has 
an opposite aspect in the modern instance. Nations 
trodden to the earth by a race that is gifted with more 
nerve and mind, and that has ampler means than their 
own, are writhmg beneath the selfish foot of a detested 
invader, whose misunderstood beneficences are, in their 
view, ten times over-paid for by the rigours of his fiscal 
exactions. Warrantably so, or not, this is, and this must, 
for long years to come, be the aspect under which British 
supremacy is regarded by the nations of India. Again 
the grounds of comparison fail us, if we consider what 
had been the training of the Roman mind up to the time 
of the Christianizing of the empire, and what has been 
that of the people of India, and what their preparation 
for accepting the rehgion of their European masters. 

The nations, east and west, that were embraced in the 
circle of the empire, at the time now in view, had all 



174 ESSAY V. 

become partakers in the same civilization ; they had all 
drunk at the same fountains of knowledge ; there was 
one mind-world : there was, and there had long been, a 
communion of thought, and a brotherhood in science, and 
in philosophy, and in poetry and art, the Greek language 
being the medium of this intellectual commerce. Even 
the people of the Syrian stock had taken up and had 
assimilated the mental and moral aliment that was sup- 
plied to them by the poets, the orators, and the sages 
of Greece. So it was, therefore, that when the Christian 
argument, such as we find it set forth in the pages of its 
assailants, and of its apologists, of the third, fourth, and 
fifth centuries, was brought forward, it was carried on 
in the hearing of all men of the educated classes, from 
border to border of the Roman world. All men, or all 
who chose to give an ear to a controversy of this kind, 
had become more or less well informed of the grounds 
and the merits of the cause which was then at issue be- 
tween the Church and the Polytheistic religions. 

Consequently, at the moment when the Imperial edict 
startled the Roman world, a brief season of surprise was 
all the shock that men's minds were subjected to in 
learning that Christianity had at length got the start of 
its rivals. At a later time, and when measures of a more 
decisive kind were carried out in its favour, and in dis- 
couragement of the waning superstitions, nothing that 
could be unintelligible to either party took place ; nothing 
was done for which a preparation had not been made in 
the thought and the feeling of all concerned. Edicts, 
touching the temples and the usages of heathenism, 
were only the ostensible acts and the steps in a transi- 
tion which all men felt had been taking its slow and 
inevitable course around them, for a long while. 



THEODOSIUS. 176 

Nothing that resembles, even remotely, this relative 
position of Christianity and heathenism, attaches to the 
contact of the former with the latter in India in these 
times. If the people of India were indeed of another 
race, and if they si)oke langnages older than Babel, and 
if their superstitions had arisen millenniums ago out of 
the infernal pit— or describe their intellectual and reli- 
gious state in terms as strong as any we can find, we 
shall scarcely overstate the fact of the hicommunicable 
divulsion of the two worlds of thought and feeling— the 
European and the Hindoo-oriental. Athwart the bot- 
tomless gulf which divides the one world from the other 
Avorld, nothing passes to and fro : or nothing— in its 
genuine form. • 

It is true that, annually, some scores of Hindoo youths 
— the frecpienters of non-Christian colleges, acquire 
enough English to read Shakespeare and our Quarterly 
Reviews, and to make us believe that India has now set 
foot upon the field of European thought. But we nmst 
not trust ourselves to any such films of correspondence 
as this ; we should not so easily persuade ourselves that 
the nations of India are coming near to us, either mo- 
rally or intellectually, or that they are able to assent to 
our historical beliefs with an enlightened consciousness 
of the grounds of any such assent. Hindoos may indeed 
accept the Gospel at our hands, and, if they do so, it 
will bring its blessings with it, to their infinite benefit 
individually, and there may be hundreds of conversions, 
and Missionary Societies may be warranted in appealing 
to their successes ; — nevertheless, the nations with their 
millions that have come under our rule in the East still 
remain incalculably remote from any condition which 
should qualify them fairly and knowingly to adjudge the 



176 ESSAY V, 

cause at issue between the several religions of their 
ancestors, and the one religion of their masters — their 
conquerors. Our inference, therefore, is this: That 
those measures for the maintenance of Christianity and 
for the suppression and removal of polytheism, which 
the Christian emperors of the fourth century might war- 
rantably adopt, cannot, for a moment, be thought of as 
applicable, under any modifications, for effecting simi- 
lar purposes, by ourselves, in India. 

Throughout that period during which Christianity and 
Paganism were in conflict and in balance, and while the 
issue might still seem doubtful, there was, on the one 
side, not only a doctrine and a system of morality which 
were allowed to be infinitely superior to anything that 
could be found on the other side, but along with this 
superiority, and as its consequence, there was a deter- 
minate belief, held by thousands of men and women 
with a fulness of persuasion and an attachment, im- 
moveably firm. On the other side there was nothing 
more substantial than popular beliefs, which, long before 
the time of this conflict, had come to be spurned and 
ridiculed by sages and their disciples. These relics of 
paganism, these ceremonies, and these domestic wor- 
ships, which were sustained by no vital forces, might be 
likened to the faded costumes and the dingy embroidered 
trappings that are seen bagging upon the wooden efii- 
gies of the kings and knights of the middle ages. The 
worn out, the tattered and botched heathenism, which 
Julian fancied he might make to stand again upon its 
legs, was everywhere, and in every city of the empire, 
and in almost every home, confronted with the truth, 
the reason, the living and the stirring energies of the 
Christian faith. 



THEODOSIUS. 177 

How, then, can a parallelism be thought to hold when 
we turn from the doings of the Roman world, in the 
times of Theodosius II. to the policy and the measures 
lately pursued, or now intended to be pursued, in India? 

Often, during these forty years past, benevolent audi- 
ences have been assured from platforms that the super- 
stitions of India were waning — were dying out from the 
mind of the people, and that Satan's empire was totter- 
mg to its fall ; — a little while, and it shall afflict our eyes 
and ears no more ! Recent events have subjoined a dire 
comment to these hasty announcements. The Poly- 
theism of India, with its lurid ferocities and its filth, just 
because it has never allied itself with any conceptions 
of beauty or of order — as did that of Greece — and just 
because it takes no spring from any axioms of reason, 
has confixed itself upon the Hindoo soul — has grown 
hito it — has gone down in its impurity, and in its cruelty, 
and in its absurdity : as a girdle of brass it encircles the 
moral and rational fiiculties, and forbids even so much ex- 
pansive movement as might issue in a release from its hold. 

Confronted with this inveterate polytheism, which 
could not be firmer in its grasp than it is, if indeed it 
were as old as its own chronology declares it to be — 
confronted with this Hindooism there are, as representa- 
tive of British Christianity in India, instead of a positive 
and coherent belief, two irreconcileable, and, in fact, 
hostile opinions, professed by those with whom the peo- 
ple of India come into contact ; for on the one side 
there is that mode of feeling in matters of religion which 
has always been characteristic of the governing class 
there, the men in authority, and the young men espe- 
cially, who, as administrators of the foreign rule, are 
spread over the country, and to whom, directly and 

8* 



178 ESSAY V. 

indirectly, revenue is paid. On the other hand, the 
Hindoo mind, here and there at least, converses with 
those whose genuine and fervent Christian feeling has 
brought them to India. Thus it is that, on the one 
side, the European, the English influence, is such as is 
felt to be substantially atheistic : on the other side, 
the same exterior European and English civilization 
speaks to the Hindoo mind in tones animated by a pro- 
found belief of whatever is emphatically Christian. The 
mere knowledge and consciousness of so vehement an 
antagonism having place among those who have come 
to rule and to teach them, would deeply afiect the minds 
of races even less shrewd and intelligent than are the 
people of India. 

It is not — and we need to be continually cautioned 
against so great an error as to suppose it — it is not as if 
all men individually who take their stand on the one 
side of the above-mentioned antagonism were utterly 
irreligious, or were purely selfish, and rapacious, and 
regardless of all things but the amassing of fortunes. 
It is not so ; for many of this very class are men of 
benevolence, and are honestly desirous (so long as Indian 
revenue is safe) of governing India for the good of the 
people. Nor is it as if all men, individually, who take 
position on the other side were simple-hearted, and self- 
denying, and ready for martyrdom : this is not so. 

But whereas, at home, principles of all kinds, specula- 
tive and practical, are intermingled in every imaginable 
manner — in the promiscuous utterances of social inter- 
course, in public discussions, and in the literary com- 
merce of a free people, and are thus softened down, and 
are mitigated, and are stripped of their sharpest charac- 
teristics; in Xndia, on the contrary, each of these forms 



THEODOSIUS. 179 



of opinion retires from contact ^villi its antagonist, and 
it receives an exaggerated expression of its meaning, and 
it comes to be uttered with a sort of empliatic and 
polemic vehemence. Tlie two beliefs, or the belief and 
the non-belief, are severally announced in the presence 
of a heathenism, such as is that of the Hindoo races, 
and of a fanaticism such as is that of the growling Ma- 
hometan population. Thus uttered, it gathers force in 
the utterance. 

It is the natural and inevitable course of things that 
the daily sights and sounds of worships so foul and so 
sanguinary as are those of India, should aggravate, should 
irritate the feelhigs of Christian men and (let us not for- 
get it) of Christian women, resident in India. And 
while this process is going on, the very same sights and 
sounds take effect upon the irrehgion of the irreligious — 
imparting to it a murky levity, a contemptuous viru- 
lence, of which all modes of feeling that relate man to a 
Avorld unseen are alike the objects. Mingled reasons of 
a mistaken policy, and of irreligious indifference, have 
brought high-mmded Englishmen in India to submit to 
the humiliation of touching the hat to the Devil ; and in 
doing so (as is the case in every instance of a wrong con- 
cession to what is evil) they have brought upon them- 
selves far more of native contempt, than has been com- 
pensated by any gratitude they have thus earned from 
the besotted worshippers. 

Men in authority in India who, in discharge of their 
functions, are forced into contact with Pagan usages — 
usages insufferably abominable, are not unlikely to reason 
with themselves in some such manner as this — " Placed 
where I am, and cognizant of this filth — this folly, and 
this murder, there is no alternative for me but this — I 



180 ESSAY V. 

must either give utterance to my abhorrence and con- 
tempt, and then act accordingly ; — or I must so deport 
myself as if I were supremely indifferent to everything — 
to everything but revenue, and the making a fortune for 
myself. If I professed to care for justice and mercy, or 
if I announced my belief in a righteous Almighty and a 
future judgment, I should render myself amenable, in 
the view of the people, to principles of reason, truth, 
and humanity. My part, therefore, is that of a super- 
cilious indifference ; at least it is so until the day comes 
when I shall be able to speak and act spontaneously — to 
speak and act as a Christian and as an Englishman." 

Those who, rejecting this sort of indifference, might 
undertake to justify a more coercive course of conduct 
on the part of a Christian government, toward the Hin- 
doo people and their religious usages, may think that 
they shall find a warrant for it in the edicts and the 
demeanour of Constantine and his successors, as related 
to the expiring polytheism of their times ; but the two 
cases are, as we have ah-eady said, essentially unlike. 
And as to Constantine himself, and the apparent incon- 
sistency of his acts, his ambiguous pei*sonal convictions, 
at least during the ten years immediately succeeding the 
public profession of his conversion, must be taken into 
the account, if Ave are looking for an explanation of his 
conduct in continuing, as he did, to dispense the custo- 
mary gratuities among the ministers of worships, which 
were still adhered to by large masses of the Roman 
people — by many (or most) of the wealthy and noble, 
and professedly also, by the leaders of the philosophical 
sects. Sacrifices on state occasions were still offered, 
and prayers were enjoined to be made to "them that 
have ears, but hear not." Coins were struck, which in 



THEODOSIUS. 181 

device and in legend were polytheistic. In the phrase- 
ology of public documents ancient forms were retained ; 
for so it is in all parallel instances — reform w^aits long, 
and knocks many times at the door of government 
otKces. The imperial conversion, if it amazed the Ro- 
man world for a moment, as a thunder-clap, did not 
blaze out upon it nnclouded, as day does in the tropics, 
but crept up upon the sky as does the summer morning 
in the misty and showery north. 

In the course of a hundred and fifty years, reckoned 
on from the edict of Milan, the ancient worships were 
in constant course of fading away : — they slunk out 
of sight ; — every year they were becoming less and less 
the subjects of serious controversy. Thus there are 
meteoric conditions of the atmosphere, during which 
detached clouds are seen to be melting into nothing ; 
and if you watch the borders of the heaviest masses, 
they are shooting forth limbs, which disappear while you 
look at them : — all vapours are in a state of rapid absorp- 
tion, until at length the clear blue prevails on all hands. 
So it was that the imperial edicts, throughout the years 
of the fourth century, had been anticipated, in almost 
each instance, by changes that had taken place in pub- 
lic opinion : and these changes — these reformations, in 
fact — were so many advances toward a higher moral 
condition of the Roman world, a progress which must 
have given another aspect to European history, if it had 
not, so soon, been arrested. 

Christianity knows nothing of imperial edicts, or of 
acts of Parliament ; but whenever the edicts of a go- 
vernment are of a beneficial kind, and when also they 
are hopeful, because well-timed, it is when and where 
the moral forces of the Gospel have already taken effect 



182 ESSAY V. 

throughout the social mass, and have done so to such 
an extent as that reformatory laws have been called for, 
and are welcomed — perhaps they may have been impar 
tiently demanded by the popular feeling. Each of the 
more flagrant characteristics of the Greek and Roman 
polytheism — each of those vicious institutions, and of 
those pernicious usages which a modern Christianized 
community would resent and repel with abhorrence, had 
come to be regarded as insufferable — as abominable, 
long before the moment of its prohibition by the state. 
If the intrinsic moral forces of the Gospel had not, at so 
early a time, been first abated by the prevalence of the 
ascetic doctrine, and then turned aside by the revival 
of the ancient polytheism, under the guise of the shrine- 
worship, the incursions of the Gothic hordes would not 
have prevailed, as they did, to overthrow the civilization 
of southern Europe. 

Well would it repay the labour it might cost, to fol- 
low, and to exhibit' the progress of the Christian energy 
— regarded simply as a protest against the established 
injustices and the ritual impurities, the cruelties and the 
filthiness of Greek and Roman heathenism! How 
animated, how firm, how irresistible, was this protest, 
as we catch the echoes of it, in listening to the early 
Christian apologists ! Truly these witnesses for the new 
faith spake as the prophets of the Highest when, in its 
defence, and in asking for justice — they reasoned vvdth 
the men of their times — with philosophists and poten- 
tates, concerning "righteousness, and temperance, and 
the j udgment to come." The sophists were soon silenced, 
and profligate magnates quailed, and were glad to screen 
themselves behind their material powers, whenever this 
scorch of eternal reason was sent in upon their con- 



THEODOSIUS. 183 



science; they " trembled " for an hour only, but their suc- 
cessors in tiie next i\^Q^ gave way, and acknowledged, in 
the Christian teacher, the authentic servant of God. 

Thus was it until the time when the Christian advo- 
cate betrays his consciousness that he and his colleagues, 
in carryuig forward their controversy with the patrons 
of tlie ancient superstitions, had abandoned their vantage 
ground, and had themselves come to take a position 
near to that of the apologist of the gods, and where 
they had much to do to defend what was so utterly 
indefensible. Clear, bold, and consistent in principle, 
were the early apologists, such as Justin Martyr, Athe- 
nagoras, Minucius Felix, Origen, Tertullian, Arnobius, 
in their maintenance of their own part, and in their 
assault upon the absurd demon-worships of the Gentiles, 
and upon its immoralities : — all thus far was right, and 
well these champions knew that there was no room for 
gainsaying — there was no flaw in their plea. But not 
so was it with their successors, the Christian apologists 
of the following century. Ambrose, Basil, Chrysostom, 
the Gregories, and, alas ! Augustine, had waded knee- 
deep into the mire of superstition, and they were not 
unconscious of the moral humiliation to which they had 
yielded themselves. How poorly, for instance, does 
Auo-ustine maintain his standing when assailed by a 
Pagan schoolmaster of his diocese ; to what pitiful shifts 
does he resoit ! or, to follow the course of things an- 
other century further, we may look into the orations of 
John Damascenus — itsfi Ta7g ayiaig stxovaig — and then 
read, if we have patience, the decrees of the second 
Council of Nice ! It was not a Christianity so diluted 
as was that of the sixth and seventh centuries, that 
could keep alive the moral energies of the mass of the 



184 ESSAY V. 

people, and therefore all were soon to be trampled on 
by Goths, Vandals, Saracens. 

We have just now said that the acts of the Roman 
emperors, in aiming at the suppression of Paganism, 
will not furnish precedents for the guidance of a Chris- 
tian government, at this time, in dealing with the poly- 
theism of the conquered races of India. The instances 
are not, in any sense, parallel ; the nations, the ancient 
and the modern, are in wholly diiferent conditions, 
moral and intellectual ; and the relation of the govern- 
ment toward the people is essentially different. Never- 
theless human nature is ever the same, and therefore 
there is a lesson to be gathered from each chapter of the 
history of the human family. The propension of the 
human mind toward a religion of many divinities, male 
and female, is one of the most constant of its tenden- 
cies ; and the instances in which, for any length of time, 
a higher direction has been given to the religious in- 
stinct, and a pure theology has been resolutely main- 
tained, are rare indeed. We may be quite sure that 
this tendency will ever and again show itself. A people, 
fully taught in the first and greatest of all truths, holds 
to its profession of it, shall we say, through three gene^H 
rations, or through five ? The Jewish people, from the 
time of their return to their land, have, in this one 
sense, been found faithful to their vocation ; but it hi 
been under conditions so exceptional as to remove th« 
instance from its place as pertinent in any argument^ 
The Christianized nations of southern Europe had n 
lapsed, very generally, into polytheism before five gene-'^ 
rations had passed away. At this moment the populace 
throughout the same areas, East and West, are hope- 
lessly addicted to practices which differ in name only, 



ne 

1 



THEODOSIUS. 185 



and in costume, from the i)agauism of their remotest 
ancestors. 

How, then, shall it be in India ? In India, as to the 
relation of the people to the government, everything is, 
and must long be, if not for ever — anomalous — out of 
harmony with all theory — exceptional, as to the entire 
course of ordinary history. Governed from a remote 
centre, by a race utterly alien and abhorrent to its own, 
conquered and held in subjection by nothing but steel, 
or if by aught else, by films of moral influence ; governed, 
if not with an exclusive, yet with a constant and sove- 
reign regard to the annual fiscal result — India must, 
under conditions so strange (always supposing the conti- 
nuance of the British supremacy) and more and more 
so, it must stand as a paradox, in the large volume of 
human experiences. 

Who, then, shall venture to predict the future of India 
when this paradox is to work out its solution upon a 
field whereupon is assembled a fifth, or a seventh part, 
of the human family ? But if the India of ten years 
hence defies all sagacity to foresee it, nevertheless, if 
we choose to assume the permanence of the British 
supremacy there, then — and this contingence being the 
datum of our conjectural hypothesis — then there are 
some results of the reaction of India upon England 
Avhich may be foreseen with a degree of certainty. No 
one will say that ten years hence the Ganges and the 
Indus shall float red uniibrms from tlieir mouths to 
their sources, but if we grant this fiict, then we may 
predict for England itself a mighty result, deeply affect- 
ing whatever, among ourselves, is of the highest im- 
portance. 

It does not come witliin the province of the writer of 



186 ESSAY V. 

this Essay to speak of " exports and imports," and 
" revenue," or the like ; but he may speak of those revo- 
lutions in the world of thought and action which out- 
weigh revenue, and which are of more enduring conse- 
quence than the maintenance of empires. 

Reaction, in any case, will, as to its intensity and its 
extent, be directly as the speed and the frequency of the 
intercourse between countries, or nations. In all times, 
known to history, the Eastern world and the Western, 
have interchanged influences — the West acting upon 
the East, the East reacting upon the West. In each 
of these instances while the obvious, and the noisy, and 
the tangible part of this intercourse has been that of 
the West upon the East — such, to wit, as the con- 
quests of Alexander, the Crusades, the Portuguese, the 
French, the British settlements and conquests — the 
deep, the silent, the enduring part of the same inter- 
course has been the reaction of the East upon the politi- 
cal constitutions, upon the social equilibriums, of the 
nations of Europe, and upon their arts and commerce, 
upon their philosophy, and their habits of thought. SodH 
it is likely to be in the instance before us. England^™ 
acts upon India; and the nations, its European com- 
j^etitors, admire, and wonder, and grudge, at the spec- 
tacle of such valour, and of such energy, and of such 
success ! But meantime, as always it has been hereto- 
fore, during the lapse of five and twenty centuries — 
India is reacting upon the dominant race ; it is doing so 
silently, irresistibly, and with a deep-going force, a 
force of that kind which, while it bespeaks the presence 
of the Almighty, puts contempt upon the interference 
of man. 

It may be well, for a moment, to bring into view the 



THEODOSIUS. 187 

instantaneonsness and the vital activity of that inter- 
course which, at this moment, is linking England with 
India — that umbilical cord through which the circula- 
tion, to and fro, is going on. Recent events have 
thrown India in upon hundreds of English homes with 
a force and a meaning the intensity of which will not 
soon be spent. India, its sites and its scenes, its cos- 
tumes and manners, its material splendours, and its real 
horrors, have become terribly familiar to the imagina- 
tion of bereaved parents and sisters in all social circles. 
So much nearer to us is India, in thought and sympa- 
thy ! And the same course of events, adding, as it 
does, a new stimulus to the mechanical marvels of loco- 
motion, is shortening, continually, the intervals of cor- 
respondence, so that, instead of months, we are getting 
to compute the distance by weeks — lately — now by 
days; — and ere long it will be by hours, perhaps by 
minutes! There is Calcutta news! how recent is it? 
12 at noon, Greenwich time, and this is 12.30. 

Our sympathies and moral emotions, not often unrea- 
sonable, are unreasoning most often. Why should 
they be liable to so much abatement from incidental 
differences of space and time? We cannot well say 
how or why it is so, but yet it is : a calamity, a horror, 
an injustice — when and where has it befallen the suffer- 
ers ? — and are these sufferers our dearest relatives ? — 
was it on the other side of the globe ? — was it a year 
ago? Xay, it was in the next street, and it was yester- 
night ! Nearness in time and place is the condition of 
intense emotion ; and thus it is that the railway and 
the electric wire are now becoming the nerves of sensa- 
tion and the nerves of volition throughout the world. It 
is time, then, that the doers of wrong, and the perpetra- 



188 ESSAY V. 

tors of cruelties, should look to themselves, for, remote 
as may be the corners where their crimes are done, 
what they are about will perhaps be known and pub- 
lished in every capital of the civilized world before the 
sun is hot of the next day ! 

It is, then, with this sort of instantaneousness that the 
things of India, henceforward, shall react upon England ; 
and it is at this same speed that the public opinion of 
England shall make itself known, the next hour, in India. 
What, then, must ensue ? Just this, that India, whether 
converted to Christianity, or not converted, and whether 
governed by Christian men or by secularists, shall feel 
that it must amend its usages, and that it must learn to 
be ashamed of what it has been during these four thou- 
sand years or more. 

The Pagan usages of India, beginning with those that 
are of the deej^est atrocity, and going on to those which, 
in less degrees, are offensive to the English eye and ear, 
must now give way — not as did those of the Greek and 
Roman polytheism, which slowly yielded to a vital 
movement from within the same social body, but by an 
exterior force, and because of their insufferable prox- 
imity to a higher civilization — that of Europe — that of 
England. The nearness of India to England, by steam 
navigation, by rail, and by the electric wire, and by the 
increasing frequency of intercourse, and by the incessant 
coming and going, and by the lengthy correspondence 
which is now permeating all domestic circles, these things 
have the effect of brino-ins: the Hindoo abominations 
close under our drawing-room windows, as nuisances 
that are not to be endured : there will be an outcry to 
sweep them away. 

Not the most determined of our non-interference 



THEODOSIUS. 189 



Statesmen would now find it possible to arrest this re- 
formatory process; much less could he dare to license 
anew the religious murders, and the hnniings, and the 
tortures which already have been interdicted. As things 
NOW ARE, to revive such doings would set our English 
homes on fire, would hurl public men from cheir posi- 
tion, would raise tornadoes in Exeter Hall, and in every 
provincial hall, from end to end of the country. " Our 
Indian fellow-subjects" must learn to be as pious as they 
please, short of murder. 

What is it, then, that will be taking place in the course 
of this arbitrary and externally-wrought reformation? 
It is well to consider such a question. How bright an 
anticipation would it be if we might believe that, in 
thus removing the superficial hideousness of the demon- 
worships of India, we shall be penetrating the substance, 
and that we shall thus dislodge the demon ! Xo such 
hoj^e as this is warranted by the history of those nations 
that have been habituated to polytheism through long 
ages. So happy an event may indeed come about, who 
shall deny it ; but another course of things is far more 
probable. As to the few — those of the natives who are 
the aspirants to English culture, and to whom, in colleges, 
we are opening wide the portals of scientific atheism — 
the case of such demands a separate consideration ; but 
as to the masses of the Hindoo population, they are 
undergoing a softening, a breaking up of the horrific 
crust of their ancient superstitions. The Hindoo children 
of this present time, from the mere privation of inhuman 
spectacles, and from the non-occurrence in their high- 
ways of exhibitions the sight of which is moral perdition, 
these are in a course of passive training for — what? is it 
for Chnstianity? May it please God to bring about 



190 ESSAY V. 

such an end ! But we should prepare ourselves to ex- 
pect a far less welcome consequence ; — and this, which 
is the more probable event, and which is Hkely to show 
itself in a few years, or when the youth of India reaches 
early manhood, is— the wide and rapid substitution of a 
mild and bloodless polytheism, in the place of that of 

which the people of India will have become ashamed 

taught, as we are teaching them, to look at their ancient 
atrocities with European eyes. 

The people of India, weaned from such things, will be 
looking around in quest of gods and goddesses— kind 
intercessors, who shall look down upon them from pedes- 
tals in their streets, and shall smile, and show in their 
attitude, and in their tranquil visages, that which lost 
human nature so earnestly yearns for — propitious super- 
natural power, quite near at hand, and offered to the eye 
and touch. 

Who is it, then, that shall now come forward at this 
silent invitation ? Who is it that shall bring before the 
late worshippers of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva, a smiling 
Mother with infant in arms, both of them nimbus- 
crowned, and proclaimed in all thoroughfares as " Queen 
of Heaven, Queen of angels, and the Fountain of Grace 
to every suppliant ?'* ISTor would this divinity hold her 
celestial court unattended, for thousands of gracious and 
open-handed mediators are ranged around her, to right 
and left, and each has his or her peculiarity of aid or 
favour to bestow. Thy ancient gods, O India, were 
beings of savage mood, they were stubborn in temper 
and vindictive, and hard to be placated; but these are 
propitious ; they are all loving and indulgent ; nor are 
they strict as toward human frailties, yet are they them- 
selves pure as the azure sky, and free from every taint 



THEODOSIUS. 191 



of earth : kiiee'l to these: — address your supplications to 
tliese ! 

It was a traiisnuitation very nearly resembling this, and 
yet apparently less probable, under the circumstances, 
which, taking place as it did during the lapse of the 
fourth and three following centuries, gave to the south- 
ern European nations the polytheism which still holds 
bound all of them whose soil had been thoroughly satu- 
rated with the ancient worships — with the Greek and 
the Roman polytheism. Protestantism has expelled the 
Roman Catholic polytheism from those countries only 
in which the classic polytheism had obtained not more 
than a brief term of occupation. 

But as to India, its soil is rank and rich in preparation 
for sustaining a bright-coloured and gorgeous worship, 
such as is that which undoubtedly will now be offered 
to the acceptance of its millions. 

How difficult is it to speak and write, and to read 
too, otherwise than polemically upon subjects which are 
still warmly controverted among ourselves ! But now 
in these pages the writer and the reader are supposed 
to be standing aside from the noisy world, and to be 
quit of their prejudices. Be it so understood, and 
moreover, let us assume that, while intending no offence 
to our neighbour, we must hold fast our personal con- 
victions, and especially that we dare not, at the prompt- 
ing of a factitious courtesy, or of a fiilse-hearted liberal- 
ism, despise the requirements, either of common sense, 
or of religious consistency. 

Now then for our point. Take the instance of a 
devout and well-instructed member of the Roman Catho- 
lic Church. We say an instructed member, and not 
only so, but one wlio is surrounded also with the Bible 



192 ESSAY V. 

atmosphere and the Bible light of a free Protestant 
country. To such a one, and especially if he or she 
takes the discreet and the pious Alban Butler as his (or 
her) guide, it may be practicable, we dare not say it 
will be easy, to understand, and always to observe, the 
distinction which excuses him from the imputation of 
idolatry, or of polytheism, while he catches hold of the 
alleged difference between — reverential regard, the 
hyper-reverential regard, and the proper religious wor- 
ship, which last alone is to be offered to the Supreme 
Being. We grant you all the benefit you can any way 
derive from these nice distinctions: hold tight to the 
difference, if there be any, the next time when you bow 
the knee in front of an image, or a picture, and, looking 
upward, you utter your petition. You tell us that you 
" honour God in His saints," and that your particular 
and favourite saint hears your prayer " in God," and so 
forth. We pursue you not on this perilous ground, for 
in treading this lava-crust we could not keep the eye 
from peering in between the crevices where we should 
see the fiery crimson flood, that awful deluge which, 
long ago vomited up from the nether world, has, through 
thousands of years, spread itself over the nations, to 
their ruin. 

Let common sense give way as far as is possible to 
charity, and then utter itself aloud without reserve. 
Have we ever stood as the lookers-on in those countries 
where the Roman Catholic worship has always been the 
religion of the masses of the people, where it has been 
liable to no rebuke, to no reprehension, and where the 
people, the higher and the lower, have never been chal- 
lenged to bethink themselves of their religious usages? 
Stretch a charitable hypothesis to its extreme Hmit, and 



THEODOSIUS. 193 



then ask — as to the prostrate crowd of worshippers, 
encircling the image of a favourite saint, and addressing 
to it tlieir fervent entreaties for grace and succor — ask 
what now becomes of the distinction betw^een the dulia, 
and the hyper-dulia, and the latria? To these besotted 
devotees it is, as if it were not ; nor does the religion 
of the mass of the people otherwise differ from that of 
their remotest ancestors — than so far as is implied in 
the characteristics that are attributed to their divinities 
severally. If common sense be listened to, and if a 
fearless regard be had to conspicuous facts, then we 
must assent to this conclusion — that though the names 
are not the same, and though rites have undergone a 
change, the idol-worship and the polytheism are, in 
every other sense, the same. 

That substitution of a mild polytheism for a polythe- 
ism that is fierce, vindictive, impure, and horrific, is the 
revolution which the course of events may speedily 
bring about in India. It shall startle many among us 
by the suddenness of its commencement, by the rapidity 
of its progress, and by the universality of its triumphs. 

Are we intending — or should we be able, if intending 
it — to bolt the door against the now-coming St. Francis 
Xa\ier, and his train of devoted ministers? We dare 
not attempt this. Spite of us he will set his foot upon 
the India which wx' have just now conquered for him. 
He will bear aloft the most attractive symbols ; — he will 
be copious and eloquent in his commendations of the 
" Queen of Heaven ! — Mother of Mercy ! Does she not 
clasp the infant Saviour of the world in her graceful 
arms, and shall not the Mother prevail with the Son ? 
And WE who now bring to you the glad tidings of a 
new dispensation, we are not of the hated Saxon race 

9 



194 ESSAY V. 



that has conquered India; we are not of the same blood 
as your oppressors: we abhor their deeds of violence, 
we denounce their impieties ; it is we who are to you 
the messengers of mercy, and of nothing else." 

What is now to be done to stay a Christianizing of 
India in this manner by the ministers of Rome ? Shall 
the English Church take it patiently, and stand aside ? 
Not if Englishmen are what hitherto they have been. 
But is there not a middle course open before us, which 
it would be wise to follow ? " May we not forfend the 
successes of our rivals by adopting their principles and 
using their means of influence, by taking in hand their 
tools, by putting in practice their maxims for gaining 
the multitude? May we not denounce Rome aloud, 
and yet learn of her in secret ? We may draw off from 
her whenever we encounter her on the highway, but 
yet may call her in to teach us her craft in the closet. 
Let but the Episcopal Church of England retrace the 
mistaken steps she has taken these three centuries past, 
and then, as thus reformed by retrogression, she will 
renew her strength, and find it an easy task to Chris- 
tianize India, even as St. Austin, advised by Pope Gre- 
gory, Christianized England." 

This we may be sure of, that, in taking any such 
course as this, the Church of England would at once 
forfeit the support and favour of that class of public men 
without whose support these very measures must fail of 
success. The philosophic and the indifferent, the " non- 
interference" statesmen, who rule India, if they saw the 
Hindoo people crowding, by fifty thousand at a time, 
around the modern St. Francis Xavier, and receiving 
baptism at his hands in uncounted groups, and taking 
up with a religion wliich would be spoken of as " well 



THEODOSIUS. 195 



:i(l:i|)te(l to tlioir moral and intellectual condition, " 
would liail the event with undissenibled sati.sf:Jetion. 
Ti;us feelinix, they wo'.dd frown upon the endeavour to 
s]>';it tlie ditference, or to tamper with so desirable a })ro- 
cess. Siiall it be that, *•' for the sake of we know not 
what nice distinctions, be they metaphysical, or theolo- 
gical, or ecclesiastical — we care not what they are — 
you are wishing to arrest the cdlirse of a reform wdiich 
will be brought about by your rivals in a far better 
manner, and more speedily, than it can be by yourselves ; 
in a word, you need not doubt that we shall lend our- 
selves to their endeavours, and not to yours.^'' Thus, 
consistently with their indifterence towards religions of 
all kinds, will a certain class of statesmen reason. 

It must be as animated by another principle, and 
moved on by another zeal, and inspired by another hope, 
and governed by another rule, that the Church of Eng- 
land (and other communions with her) shall hencefor- 
«\ard perform their destined part in India. The colli- 
sion and the conflict between Romanism and the Church 
of England in India, which can scarcely fail to follow in 
the track of recent events, wdll throw each anew upon 
that which is its characteristic principle. The reaction 
of this new movement in India, upon Romanism at its 
centre, and upon our Protestant communions in Eng- 
land, may give an unexpected aspect to the Christianity 
of Europe, and may divorce anew the nations. 

Once and again, in modern times, the propagation 
enterprises of the Romish Church have drawn its minis- 
ters onward toward the most dangerous extremes of 
compromise with Pagan usages. The authorities at 
Rome have been scandalized and alarmed, and have 
been compelled to disown these ambiguous doings. But 



196 ESSAY V. 

at present the temptation to follow in the same tracks in 
India, will be far greater than ever it has been, and will 
be yielded to. The Romish Church has a rich and vast 
region in view, over which it may now spread its easy 
triumphs ; and it may do this under the very eye, and 
by the aid of its rival and enemy : it may spread itself 
from side to side of the Peninsula, none daring to make 
it afraid. The governSient pledges itself for its protec- 
tion, as a matter of principle, and as a rule of policy too. 
Who, then, shall stay its course ? 

This course, if pursued in bringing about the conver- 
sion of the nations of Hindustan, must be regarded, not 
merely as a dangerous and unwarrantable concession to 
polytheistic notions and practices, but it will be found 
to demand a deeper and an always deepening falseness, 
and spuriousness, and hollowness of pretension, and, in 
a word, a universal untkuthfulness, as between the 
ministers of religion and the masses of the people. But 
untruthfulness toward man brings with it a searing of ther 
conscience, and then follows the darkest and the most 
ominous of all crimes — the living a lie in the confronted 
presence of Almighty God. 

In tracing up separately, to its obscure origin, in 
remote times, each of the characteristic dogmas and 
practices of the Romish Church (and the same nearly is 
true of the Eastern Church) no stretch of charity will 
suffice to ward off the seemingly harsh conclusion that 
^oiiie fraud, practised by the ministers of religion upon 
the people, and intended, perhaps, for their benefit — was 
its germ. And thus, as we follow the natural develop- 
ment of errors down the turbid stream of time, the same 
impression becomes stronger and more distinct at every 
stage — spurious7'iess, fabrication, falseness, as between 



THEODCTSIUS. 197 

the ministers of religion and tlie people; this is tlie con- 
tinuous and the growing characteristic of each stage of 
tlie process, which at length matures a small fiction into 
the giant dimensions of an enormous lie. IIow can the 
most candid and philosophically-tranquil reader of the 
orighial documents of Romish Church history defend 
himself from this conclusion — that untruthfulness 
toward the people, and an impious contempt of the 
awful majesty of God, have ever been the law and the 
reason of Romanism. 

There can be no need to put to Christian men, or to 
Englishmen, the question — By what means, or on what 
principle, should Romish superstitions be met on the 
plains of India, or in China? Do we not fear God? 
Do we not abhor lying, and scorn fabrications ? Do we 
not hold in utter contempt the quirks and the tricks of 
the surpliced charlatan ? Yes, and we are prepared to 
take patiently the defeat of our endeavours to spread the 
Gospel in the East, rather than exult in easy triumphs 
which we might achieve by impious falsities — by pom- 
pous and gorgeous quackeries, or by a prurient practising 
with a sensual race, in the dark. But if, indeed, there 
be any among us who are otherwise minded than thus, 
then an appeal might well be made to them on the sup- 
position that there is an honest ounce of Anglo-Saxon 
blood yet curdling about their hearts. To such we say — 
Be honest at least thus far. Enlist yourselves at once 
as ministers of the Pantheon ; there you will stand in no 
false position, and all the services required of you shall 
be to your mind : nothing will there be done by halves, 
and there, if conscience does not upbraid you, no other 
upbraidings shall trouble your future course. 

The work that has henceforward to be done bv honest 



198 ES^AY V. 

and Christian-hearted men in India, and in China, is of 
a new order, and it is incomparably more arduous than 
hitherto (or at all in modern times) Christian ministers 
have been called to engage in. It is a work for which 
no sufficient preparation has been made, either within 
the enclosures of the English Episcopal Church, or 
among the communions around it. But it has this one 
auspicious prognostic : — the work is such that it will 
create the men who are to do it, and the work, once 
engaged in, will train them for their duty. 

Bnt if it were asked, what is there in the present 
position, or in the aspect of affairs in India, or in China, 
which differs much from the now well-understood con- 
ditions of the missionary enterprise, all the world over? 
the reply might be of this sort : — The Christianity of 
England will henceforward have to maintain itself, and 
to make progress, as it stands related first — to the 
ancient paganism — secondly, to the Christianized pagan- 
ism of Rome, thirdly — to European atheism; and then 
— as related to these three, in their present peculiar 
condition of coalescence and of tacit compromise, the 
issue being a combination of elements that is too inti- 
mate and too natural^ to be broken up otherwise than 
by the power and mercy of Heaven, specially put forth. 
But when we say this, the practical inference is the same 
as it would be if, as in relation to purely secular inter- 
ests, everything depended upon our skill, industry, 
sagacity, and forecasting of the probable course of events. 
The course of events throughout the Eastern world will 
not fail to be such as shall call up a new class of men — in 
Europe (may we say it) in Britain — to meet it ; and thus, 
the reaction of the East upon the West will be more re- 
markable than is the action of the West upon the East. 



ESSAY VI. 

JULIAN : PROHIBITIVE EDUCATION. 

A FOREMOST place in the Greek literature and philo- 
sophy of his times would probably have been assigned 
to Flavins Claudius Julianus, if it had not been his mis- 
fortune to become master of the Roman world. As one 
of the ablest, and the best, and the purest in intention, 
and the most humane, of the Roman emperors, he would, 
with equal probability, have been accounted, if nature 
and industry had not previously made him an accom- 
plished man of letters, and a devoted intellect ualist. 
And yet even so, a sort of " double first" distinction 
mi<2:ht have been awarded him by posterity if, in com- 
bining the two orders of merit — that of a philosopher 
and that of a ruler, he had not committed that one blun- 
der which the vindictive church writers of his time have 
miscalled his "apostacy." As a philosopher only, 
according to the modes of thinking that were prevalent 
at Athens while he enjoyed the companionship of Gre- 
gory Xazianzen, Basil, and other bright- witted and " fast" 
young men of that babbling place, he would ne^er have 
troubled himself with the bootless endeavour to restore 
the superannuated paganism of Greece : or, as statesman 
only, and with the Roman world at his feet, and himself, 
at an early time in his course, possessed of a well-earned 
military reputation, Julian would better have under- 
stood his situation, and would wisely have left the fierce 



200 ESSAY VI. 

religionists around him to settle their differences as they 
could, and to prevail as they might severally against the 
waning superstitions of the populace. But it was not so ; 
for the philosopher, prompted and moved from his 
equanimity by the resentments, and by the virtuous dis- 
gusts of the man, misadvised the emperor, and thus it 
was that, in a sullen heat, he threw off his Christian pro- 
fession, and proclaimed anew the classic fables, as if he 
thought that the imperial lungs might breathe truth and 
life into the dead mythologies ! 

The measures he pursued, in his brief course, for 
depressing and degrading the Christian community, and 
for lifting paganism from out of the abyss into which it 
was fast sinking, were of that order which is likely to 
recommend itself to pubhc men w^ho, having shone at 
college, and coming, in early manhood, to mix them- 
selves with the affairs of an empire, bring with them bits 
and rendings of their academic whims — their theories, 
their corollaries, and their crotchets. It is your acade- 
mic men, fresh from Athens, even the brightest and the 
best of them, that go on blundering and blundering, as 
statesmen, until the world is fairly sick of their failures. 

Xobody, says this philosophic Caesar, shall have 
ground of complaint ; henceforward all religions are 
tolerated throughout the empire. This was so far well ; 
but it was not well, nor was it consistent with a truly- 
intended toleration, that the Christian party should be 
called upon to defray the costs of restoring the demo- 
lished pagan temples, much less that they should have 
been compelled to "do the repairs" with their own 
hands, unless, • indeed, where " Catholic mobs" had 
done the mischief. In these measures there was an 
obvious injustice; but in other means resorted to by 



JULIAN. 201 

Julian for more covertly achieving his purpose, namely, 
the ruin of the Christian community, there was as real 
an injustice, cloaked under a semblance of fair dealing. 
You Christians, said he, denounce our classic authors — 
our poets, orators, philosophers, as the promulgators of 
the most grievous errors ; — to you they are the teachers 
of lalse opinions concerning the gods ; by your own 
showing, therefore, we do you no wrong, we intlict upon 
you no damage, if we deny you altogether the use and 
perusal of them. You have your own books, you have 
your tracts, homilies, and treatises, and what not: be 
content with these, let these, in future, be your only 
school-books : — in a word, we prohibit the reading of the 
poets, the orators, and the dramatists of Greece, in your 
colleges. 



SECTION I. 

Thus we have before us the earliest, perhaps, of a 
series of experiments for realizing what might be called 
Prohibitive Education. This first experiment failed, 
in every sense ; and it must have failed, even if its astute 
orimnator had lived and reigned till the end of the cen- 
tury. He did not live long enough to be convinced of 
his mistake in rejecting his brother's advice — to adhere 
to the religion in which he had been trained. Gallus 
urged him to listen to the Homeric injunction — /3aXX' 
ouTwj — on the higher grounds of abstract truth ; but he 
might well have followed it, as his safest state policy. 
There was nothing in the waning paganism which could 
be substantial enough for sustaining the mighty move- 
ments of the empire after once those movements had 

9^ 



202 ESSAY VI. 

found their fulcrum in the Christian verities. It is thus 
that men of the pedantic class misjudge the relative 
" strength of materials" when they are called up to move 
forward from universities to council chambers. Julian's 
notions of the classic divinities were, perhaps, an unde- 
fined and unexamined compound of elements, among 
which might be discovered a something from Plato, a 
something from Plutarch, a something from Lucian, and 
all attempered as Athenseus would have cooked it — fit 
for the tastes of the evening party. But he did not 
understand that, though the sceptre of the Roman world 
might, even in that late age, have been again firmly held 
in the grasp of a consistent pagan stoic — an Antoninus — 
or a religious theorist, of high personal qualities, all 
things would be j)ut upon the tremble, when it was seen 
that the sheer nonsense of the classic paganism was to 
be re-enacted from the imperial throne. 

We have just now called it a semblance^ but in truth 
there is more than a show of moderation and reason in 
those epistles wherein Julian announces his determina- 
tion concerning the " Galilsean sect." Much to th 
advantage of this " apostate" would it be to place thes 
letters by the side of those of Innocent III, in which he 
moves the king and the magnates of France to extermi- 
nate the heretics of Languedoc ! or, again, those of St. 
Bernard, addressed, with a similar intention, to his pupil 
EugeniusIII; or of some fire-and-halter-breathing tracts 
of much later date, not only Romish, but Protestant 
also. 

The emperor will permit no violences to be perpe- 
trated ; there shall be no persecutions on the score of 
religion ; and the exiled bisliops shall be recalled. Is it 
Julian, " the apostate,'* or is it our Oliver Cromwell, 



JULIAN. 203 



who says : — " If men are in error, if they be ignorant 
and unreasonable, what we should do is to teach, but 
not to punish them ?" — xai yap, o;'|xai, diScKfxsiv, dXV ou// 
xoXa^siv ■)(^pYi Tovc; avofyTouf. None should be liable to suffer 
in person, goods, or reputation, on any such account as 
his religious persuasion, nor be compelled to enter a 
temple. This premised, then let men be required to act 
consistently with their own professions. I shall demand 
this. If our standard authors are, as you say, so many 
sources of error in relation to the most momentous 
principles, you teachers of Christianity ought to have 
notlnng to do with them. Why wish to employ them 
in your schools ? How is it ? Homer, Ilesiod, Demos- 
thenes, Herodotus, Thucydides, Isocrates, Lysias — these 
great men — held the gods in high esteem, as the sources 
of true knowledge; is it not, then, intolerable that men, 
with tlie same breatli, should expound these authors, and 
rail at the gods whom they worshipped ? This shall not 
be : — I will it otherwise. You must make your choice : 
abstain from these authors altogether; or if you will 
have them, teach as they taught. There is your Mat- 
thew — there is your Luke — expound these in your 
schools. 

The Christian catechist might go on with his Bible 
class ; but it is not recpiired of him that he should ex- 
pound Holy Scripture in any other manner tlian that in 
which he, and his predecessors had been used to expound 
them now these two hundred years. And in what mode 
was this ? We have ample means for obtaining a reply 
to this question. We have before us samples enough of 
the biblical exegesis of the second century, and of the 
third, and of the fourth. There is barely a remains of 
the Christinn literature of the centuries preceding the 



204 ESSAY VI. 

time of Julian's edict which does not show that to 
allow the Christian teacher of those times to expound 
his " Matthew and his Luke" in his own manner — in his 
accustomed manner, and then to deny him his Homer, 
his Hesiod, and the rest, was to take a course as nuga- 
tory and as absurd, as it was despotic. 

Julian issued his edict in a petulant mood ; he might 
have seen that the attempt to unmind the Christian 
world at that time was as impracticable as was the 
endeavour to give life and dignity to the puppet-pagan- 
ism of the past age. A still more comprehensive — or, 
as we should now say, a more philosophic — -apprehension 
of the tendency of things around him, was beyond the 
range of a man like this emperor. He did not understand 
his age : few men do understand that one page of history 
upon which their own doings are in course of being 
recorded. At all times, or in all times of movement and 
progress, it is inevitable that, among the several forces 
which are then in action, the greater force draw£ around^^ 
itself, and carries with it, in its orbit, the lesser forces tha^B 
may be near it. The brighter light will outshine and 
absorb the lesser lights. The more intense energy will take 
up, and assimilate, the weaker energies. Put the mind- 
world in strenuous agitation, and then wliatsoever has 
already spent its momentum, must obey the new impulse. 

Now when we, of this time, with perhaps our narrow 
habits of thought, and oar stereotype religious tastes, 
look into the Christian literature of the early ages, we 
find what it is a weariness to read, w^hat is distasteful^ 
what we disallow ; and much also which we think to be 
very much out of place : — and so it is. But there is 
another side of the subject. The Christian verities — 
truths high, and bright, and full of power, had come in 



JULIAN. 205 



upon the exhausted mind — upon the reason, and upon 
tlie feeling, of the great commonwealth of the nations, 
tliat were then embraced in the Roman empire. To 
this spent Mind it had imparted a new life ; the intel- 
lect, long gone astray, had been called back to a path 
of consecutive thought : — the moral sense had woke up 
from its trance : — the Paralytic had sprung upon his feet, 
" leaping, and walking, and praising God ;" and IM had 
demonstrated the reality of his recovery by taking up 
the bed whereupon he had lain for three centuries or 
more, and carrying it to his home on his shoulders. 

What, then, is our interpretation of the seeming 
pedantry of the early Christian writers? It is just this 
— the human spirit, awake, alive, and in power, was, in 
those times, depasturing itself in the fat levels of the 
Greek literature : — it was taking to itself, with a new 
assimilative appetite, the aliment it found there. The 
Mind of that age had listened to the challenge from on 
high : " Awake thou that sleepest, and arise from the 
dead, and Christ shall give thee life." So it was : this 
awakening had fully come ; this resurrection had actually 
taken place ; and how shoidd it be otherwise than that 
nourishment should be sought for on all sides, and assi- 
milated ? Too late, by at least a hundred and fifty 
years — was it for the imperial edict to take effect in 
any sense whatever : too late to ask the Christian teacher 
to abjure his mental identity, to throw away his intel- 
lectual wealth ; or to put off, if he could, his reason, his 
imagination, his feeling, his tastes ! 

What are the facts, if we look at them in a more 
exact manner ? The Christian writers and teachers of 
the third and fourth centuries had, by their industry, 
their intelligence, and by the vitality of the body to 



206 ESSAY VI. 

wliich they belonged, come into the position of residuary 
legatees of the mental estate of ancient Greece. As to 
any practical purposes, there were then no surviving 
claimants of the property; or, if we may use another 
figure, we might say, as to the intellectual inheritance 
heretofore in the occupation of polytheists, it was " an 
encumbered estate," from which the nominal proprie- 
tors could obtain no rents, and for the improvement of 
which they had no funds in hand. The new proprietors 
came up, and they set foot upon the untilled acres with 
a free and a bold tread. They were shackled by no obli- 
gations to the demons of the departed superstition : — 
the richness of the soil was theirs : — to the dilapidated 
temples they rendered neither service nor tribute. This 
is just the feeling that one has in turning over the 
pages of the learned Christian writers of those ages, 
such as — Clemens Alexandrinus, Origen, Irenseus, and 
pre-eminently so, Eusebius. We need not come down 
to a later time — to those who were the actual contem- 
poraries of Julia:n^. 

Let us fix attention, for a moment, upon a single 
instance— an instance of which Julian must, as a lite- 
rary man, have had some cognizance. The reader may 
take from his shelves the Upo'K'apaffxEuY] EvayysXix'n, of the 
last named writer, and then tell us how many European 
writers of this present time he might be able to name — 
English, German, Italian, French — whom he may believe 
to be competent to the composition of a work equal to 
this, as to the vastness and universality of the learning 
which it exhibits, and as to the writer's command of his 
boundless materials. Are there, just now, a half-dozen 
such writers, who might be the modern competitors 
for a reputation like that which is the due of the 



JULIAN. 207 



author of the Evangelic preparation ? This may be 
doubted. 

But tlie accomplished Bishop of Ca^sarea wrote for 
readers — for Christian, as much as for Pagan readers. 
The book now in our hands, what is it, then, but a mir- 
ror of the Christian intellectuality of the author's times ? 
It is so ; and when viewed in this light — its true light — 
then we are left in mute amazement at the infatuation 
of a scholar-like man who should think that, by the pub- 
lication of an edict, he could dejDrive the Galilaian sect 
and its teachers of their intellectual existence ! These 
" Galilceans " were already, and they had been so for a 
hundred and fifty years, the actual lords of the soil in 
the regions of mind ; the Galilaean plough had furrowed 
— long before this time — it had flirrowed — every teem- 
ing acre of the land of thought and reason ; the Galilaian 
vine, through many a summer's day of many years past, 
had ripened its heavy clusters uj^on every hill-side of the 
classic poetry ; beneath the broad shadow of the tere- 
binth of Palestine the Plato of Greece had found a new 
home, and new listeners ; and the time was soon to 
come when there would not be a product of the ancient 
mind which should be left outstanding of the Christian 
enclosure ! What now becomes of the Apostate's bill 
of limitations ? 

Every age lias its sample of men of Julian's type. 
There is something in them of the sophist, something 
of the pedant : — they are theorisers where they should 
concern themselves with the concrete ; and they lose 
themselves often in some specialty of the concrete, 
where they should be regardful of great j^i'inciples : — 
they are men who are quick to see all things — except 
the sun that is blazing in the hii^h heavens over their 



208 ESSAY VI. 

heads. Julian^ (we excuse his blindness in recollec- 
tion of the personal wrongs he had suffered) could not 
see or understand the miracle of that revolution which 
the Galilsean Teacher had wrought in the moral and 
intellectual life of all nations, from the shores of the 
Atlantic to the banks of the Tigris, and beyond these 
limits ; but his petulance and his error are continually 
reappearing in the evolutions of human nature ; nor are 
we unlikely at this very time to witness a repetition of 
the same mistakes, animated by the same virulence. 

Julian believed that he could stem the tidal wave 
of his times ; and it was no wonder that he failed. Yet 
it is certain that, although the broad Atlantic may not 
in any such manner be curbed, any small stream, or 
even a river, may be dammed up, or turned into a new 
channel. In this sense, or within certain limits, or, as 
we might say, within walls, the experiment of Pro- 
hibitive Education may be successfully carried out. 
This has been done, often, and the instances will occur 
to the reader's recollection. The bishops assembled at 
Carthage, toward the close of the fourth century, de- 
creed something of this sort, namely, a superfluous 
prohibition of those profane studies in which some few 
of them, perhaps, had indulged, to the scandal of the 
many. Some of the monastic orders included in their 
constitutions a rule forbidding the introduction of any 
but religious books. The Jesuit Society have done the 
like, where it suited their purpose. The more rigid of 
our modern Protestant sects have carried out similar 
restrictive measures in their schemes of general or of 
ministerial education ; and some of them have actually 
solved the problem of the possibility of giving effect to 
prohibitions of this kind ; so that they might trium- 



JULIAN. 209 



phaiitly appeal to palpable evidences of their success. 
See, they might say, see how practicable a thing it is, 
in the training of youth, to forbid their mental growth 
and expansion. 

The principle of Prohibitive Education may be acted 
upon under conditions which render it not merely prac- 
ticable, but warrantable ; as for instance : — In the esta- 
blishment of schools for the children of the labouring 
classes we may confine the course of study to the mere 
rudiments of learning, for this simple reason, that our 
funds do not permit of our giving them more ; or other- 
wise, that the brief hours which can be redeemed from 
the rigorous demands of home necessities will suffice for 
nothing more. The most liberal and benevolent endea- 
vours to open the path of learning to those who live by 
the labour of their hands may be hemmed in by hard 
conditions of tins sort. In such instances a scheme of 
education should be said to be limited^ rather than 
prohibitive. But such schemes often show their pro- 
hibitive side when the insoluble problem presents itself 
of teaching children the fear of God, in some manner 
which all " the subscribers and supporters" shall consent 
to, as not involving a compromise of their " principles," 
or as invasive of their pet prejudices. 

We have nothing now to do either with eleemosynary, 
or with under-class education, or with the difficulty, real 
or imaginary, of a combination of secular and religious 
training. These are indeed matters of the highest im- 
portance, but they are not our subject in these pages. 
PPvOniBrrrvE Education is a forced limitation of the 
studies of those who (professedly) are undergoing an 
ui)per-class training; or, in other words, who, with the 
exception, or the exceptions aimed at in the prohibition, 



210 



ESSAY VI. 



are receiving the full measure of instruction which, in 
the modern advanced state of literature and science and 
philosopher, accomplished professors can offer to the 
youth of colleges and universities. Everything belong- 
ing tc the culture of the mind is to be taught, every- 
thing—except that which indeed is the ground, the 
means, the Alpha and the Omega, of all culture. 

When Prohibitive Education, under conditions of this 
sort, is carried out in the very midst of a Christianized 
community, there may be reason to believe, or we may 
be willing to persuade oui^elves, that it is so— that the 
prohibited discipline, and the prohibited knowledge, are 
elsewhere effected and imparted, be it at home, or in a 
private course of study, or some other way, fancied and 
surmised. It will, however, be found in fact, or in the 
very large majority of instances, that the vacant room 
of the prohibited subject has come to be filled up by a 
positive formation of some sort. Mature (certainly it 
is so in the world of mind) nature abhors a vacuum ; 
and what is not formally and authentically imparted 
will be supplied either clandestinely, or spontaneously. 
The natural complement of a non-religious education 
is — a positive atheism. 

Remedies, compensations, re-actions, may come in to 
balance, or to neutralise, or to abate the mischiefs accru- 
ing from a scheme of Prohibitive Education :— or it may 
be so in a country like England. It is always allowable 
to think of such curative after-influences, as possible, and 
perhaps as probable. 

The conditions under which prohibitive education 
may be attempted, or may be carried forward, in India 
are altogether of another sort. An upper class, or uni' 
versity education, given to the higher ranks of the Hin- 



JULIAN. 211 

doo people, if it be in any sense prohibitive, seals the 
fate of those who receive it: they are its victims. 

The secularism of the present time, as applied to the 
principles of the course to be pursued in India, congests 
itself (as to education) into a proposal of this sort. — We 
will freely spread before you the entire wealth of our 
European intelligence, in the several departments of lite- 
rature, and science, and philosophy, taking care— and 
we pledge our English honour to you in this instance — 
taking care to say and to teach nothing that touches our 
religion, or, as it is called at home, " our Christianity." 

This offer and this profession, so made to the educa- 
tionable classes of our Indian subjects, must no doubt be 
condemned by Christian men, on the ground of reasons 
which they will regard as absolute and irresistible. Be 
it so ; but' the profession itself, with the offer whicli is 
made on this ground, includes a great mistake as to the 
■facts thereto relating :— it is a blunder which, like that 
of JuLiAX in his prohibitive edict, must either fail utterly 
in the execution, or if it succeeds, it will bring with 
it consequences at the sight of which we shall stand 
aghast. 



SECTION II. 

We must not spare homely language, temperately ap- 
plied, where it fits. There are principles which, although 
they may be disregarded by public men — driven as these 
so often are to the employment of miserable shifts in the 
conduct of affairs, will never be disputed among men of 
intelligence, how widely soever such men may differ in 
opinion on controvertible subjects. 



212 ESSAY VI 

There are principles which are at once laws of their 
craft, and rules of honour, among those who, either by 
the pen, or from professorial chairs, take rank as teachers 
of others. If such principles have often been forgotten, 
or contemned, by men of this class, individually, they 
are never disputed or denied. Or if, in ages past, they 
have been little regarded, in these times, it is certain, 
they must be honoured and acted upon. 

The first and foremost of these principles, or axioms, 
or laws, as we might call them, of the professorial guild, 
is that which enjoins upon the teacher (not of boys, but 
of those who are approaching manhood) an absolute 
truthfulness, a singleness of intention, springing sponta- 
neously, from the combination of clearness in the reason 
— unclouded intellectuality, and moral integrity : — it is 
the fruit of uprightness and luminousness. The teacher 
of men, some of them perhaps a few years only his ju- 
niors, must mingle himself w^ith them on such terms of 
equality as are supposed when all are animated by one 
and the same intention — when all, with a like feeling, 
are pushing forward upon the same road — one of them, 
it may be, a little in advance of the others. Truth is our 
object, and truthfulness must be our mood and temper, 
and truthfulness is the j^ledge we give one to another : 
— truthfulness — a sin against which is indeed a sin un- 
pardonable. ■ • 

No such question will ever be put to his conscience 
by a truthful teacher as this : — IIovv far may I lean over 
toward the false, without infringing upon the limits of 
professorial sincerity ? A rigiit-minded teacher abhors 
the trespass, and lie holds in utter contempt any approxi- 
mation toward it ; and he scorns therefore to whisper to 
himself, or to his colleagues, any question of this order. 



JULIAN. 213 

Falsification iiuist not be thought of: concealment, for a 
])ur]iose not confessed — is, tlilsilication. It need scarcely 
be said that, on the ground of an understanding among 
professors, each may abstain from introducing subjects 
which, as they are the province of one of them, and are 
known to be fully taught by him, and which, as they are 
incidental only to his colleagues, are left by them to his 
exclusive treatment. Concessions of this kind come not 
within our scope. 

It is a different case if a Senatus — a body of Professors 
— meet in conclave, and if they collectively pledge them- 
selves to their patrons, not to teach, not to bring for- 
ward, not to mention, this or that class of facts, although 
nearly related to subjects that are professedly taught by 
them. This is what will not be done by men who respect 
themselves, and who are regardful of the duties, and the 
rights, and the dignity of their order. 

This independence, this simplicity and integrity, and 
this absolute liberty of speech — this resplendence of the 
reason, set upon the pure gold of moral rectitude, is the 
teacher's qualification, teach where he may ; but how 
indispensable is it if he be sent forth and constituted as 
the teacher of those whose first fault — the front vice of 
their ancient race — the turpitude of the ethics they have 
inherited from thousands of years of falsity and delusion 
— is this very apathy — this want of consciousness toward 
tilth and truthfulness? If now we might take a fair 
sample of the European, and pie-eminently of the British 
mind, and if we were to bring it into contrast with the 
Oriental, and i)re-eminently with the Hindoo mind, the 
most salient point of that contrast would be — this intel- 
lectual and moral coherence and consistency, on the one 
side, and an almost absohite want of it on the other side. 



214 ESSAY VI. 

Such being the foct — and we tbiuk it is so — then shall 
we undertake the teaching and training of the Hindoo 
— a training and a discipline which is intended to lift 
him up to our own level — and in doing so shall the initial 
lesson which we give him be of this kind — that we show 
ourselves false to our own convictions? We pledge 
our British honour to the Hindoo to this extent, that, in 
teaching him, we tell him either that there is no truth in 
the world, or that we care nothing about it. 

It may be asked in what way, or by what chain of 
inferences, is a falseness of this kind implied in our 
undertaking to teach our European literature and 
science and philosophy, while we abstain from teaching 
our religion ? In finding an answer to this question, 
w^e must consider it in relation to two probable supposi- 
tions, as thus : — The Professor in a College wliere Hin- 
doos and Mahometans are taught may be an accom- 
plished man who, avowedly, has no religion — who 
believes nothing ; or believes that all reUgions are alike. 
In such a case, then, the teacher compromises no con- 
science of his own, for he has none ; but then the impu- 
tation of falseness — an imputation which will not fail to 
be carried forward — passes over the head of the indi- 
vidual teacher, and fixes itself upon the authorities 
above him. " Here are our superiors, calling themselves 
Christians, and yet appointing a man to instruct us who 
is known to hold their Christianity itself in contempt ; 
or, at the best, he is utterly indifferent toward it. Tliey 
themselves, therefore, either contemn the national reli- 
gion, or they, like our professor, are indiiferent tow^ard 
it. There must be a falseness somewhere, either in the 
patrons, or in the professor ; or in both." 

But let it be supposed that the professor is himself a 



JULIAN. • 215 



religious man ; — he is a theist and a Cliristian. Xever- 
tlieless he pledges himself to keep his religion out of 
sight in the whole of his intercourse, public and private, 
with the men whom he initiates in the literature or 
science of Euroi)e. Are Hindoo or Mahometan youths 
likely to comprehend those attenuated reasons of policy 
which may seem to justify a course like this — a course 
in which the centre truths of all philosophy are to be 
thrust from their place, lest Dative prejudices should 
take alarm ? Tliis will not be. If such youths might 
chance to fix an eye upon a page (now before us) of 
Julian's Epistles, undoubtedly they would think that 
this Pagan's reproaches might fitly be applied to their 
English teachers — xa/ ^pap^fxojv oXiyuv svsxa -ravTw^ U'jro- 
fjis'vsjv : for the sake of their stipends they will patiently 
say, or not say, this, or that, or anything, or nothing. 

Along with that defective sensitiveness toward truth 
and truthfulness, which, as we have said, is the charac- 
teristic of the Hindoo mind, there is — and in this 
respect the Mahometan is little in advance of the Hin- 
doo — a defective conception of the rightful sovereignty 
of Evidence, or valid j^roof, on any subject. Through 
countless periods the people of India have taken to 
themselves religious beliefs upon no warranty whatever 
of reason : — prodigious systems of mythology, theoge- 
nies, and theories of the universe, in relation to which 
the question — Is it true P would never be put, or, if put, 
could never be answered. In the Hindoo mental struc- 
ture it would seem as if the nerves which should con- 
nect a belief of any kind with the reasoning faculty 
have, long ago, quite withered away. It is not so en- 
tirely with the Mahometan ; but he also needs — and it 
is the first necessity of his intellectual training — he 



218 ESSAY VI. 

and not touch or teach our Christianity, and not offend 
Mahometan sensitiveness ? Nothing of this sort is pos- 
sible. No artifice of reserve, no method of concealment, 
none of the subterfuges of a mistaken delicacy, no rules 
of a scheme of Prohibitive Education, will avail us in 
this case. In teaching history we must needs speak the 
truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth ; and 
inasmuch as a bold-minded and simple-hearted teacher 
has nothing on his own side to conceal, so will he not 
consent to conceal anything on the supposition, so insult- 
ing to those who have put their minds into his hands, 
that they would not wish to learn it. 



SECTION III. 

The expressions so often used of late in connection 
with Indian affairs — " our Religion" — " our Christi- 
anity" — and " the teaching our Religion in India" — 
convey, and conceal in conveying it, a serious misappre- 
hension of facts which should be better understood. 
The correlative phrase, " our Religion," has no meaning, 
unless it implies that there are other religions abreast of 
our own, and which may claim to be thought of, and 
cared for, and endowed, along with it, and which, per- 
haps, may have as good a claim as our own to a respect- 
ful treatment. 

It is quite true that, when we put ourselves in the 
position of the subjugated nations of the East (and we 
ought so to place ourselves sometimes) that, as looked 
at from this point of view, " our Religion" is only one 
of several; and it is true, moreover, that, in all matters 
of fiscal justice, and in all matters concerning the police, 



Jl'LTAN. 219 



and in whatsoever touches the princi[)les and tlie prac- 
tices of a perfect religious toleration, these " other reli- 
gions" possess unimpeachable claims to a carcl'ul and 
even scrn})ulous regard on the part of a conquering and 
omni})otent alien Government. All this is out of ques- 
tion, and it can scarcely be necessary fornuilly to say as 
much. 

But what we are concerned with in this Essay stands 
altogether on another ground. We are not speaking of 
this or of that religion, looked at from the Plindoo or 
the Mahometan point of view ; nor yet of " our religion" 
such as it is, and ought to be regarded by the Chris- 
tian missionary, or by Christian teachers. What we 
have before us is the proposed impartation of European 
intelligence — its literature, its physical science, and its 
abstract philosophy — to the native mind, both Hindoo 
and Mahometan : — and as to this training and this teach- 
ing, we assume that it is to be ample, and genuine, and 
unreserved, and honest. Furthermore, while an educa- 
tion of this kind is not set on foot for the purpose of 
teaching Christianity (for this teaching should flow in 
altogether ariotlier channel) it cannot be deliberately 
hiten<]ed to teach, and to ensure the adoption of, that 
virulent European atlieism which, at this time especially, 
is the only " other Religion" to which Christianity stands 
opposed. 

In carrying to India the mass and the volume of Eu- 
ropean intelligence — its specific knowledge, and those 
modes of thinking that are adopted by the educated 
classes of Christianized Europe, we must take with us 
either the material atheism of France or Germany, or 
else we must take our Christian Theism, and our Chris- 
tian sentiment and feeling : the one system, or the other 



220 ESSAY VI. 

must be assumed as the centre of thought, and as the 
fulcrum and the energy around which all other forces 
are to revolve, and toward which all things must tend. 
But then as to this Atheism, we must know what is its 
name at this moment, and where it is to be found, and 
who is its high priest, or its Mahomet. For, as to the 
last of the atheisms that has been much spoken of, it was 
slain awhile ago, not by Christian hands, but by the 
ministers of a religion of the same order, which is now, 
we are told, almost ready to make its triumphant entry 
upon the stage of the world, and to rule our future des- 
tinies. Meantime we may be sure it is Christianity that 
must stand, where it has so long stood — the centre, the 
fulcrum, the reason, the law of all movements in the 
great world of cultured thought, feeling, and action. 

We return, for a moment, to Julian and his times. 
He failed to apprehend the fact that, some time before 
the mid years of the fourth century, Christianity had 
become the dominant power in the world of thought. 
Toward it all things in that world tended ; around it, 
as their centre, all things were coming to revolve. 
Named, or not named, in books; professed, or rejected, 
this was the sun among the planets, and assuredly there 
was then no other sun in the heavens. This conspicuous 
fact this emperor and philosopher did not understand ; 
and therefore he thought that he might shut off the 
Greek literature from the enclosures of the Galilsean 
sect ! — a great mistake ! Nevertheless this attempt, 
impracticable as it was, must be accounted a less mistake 
than is the endeavour, at tliis time made, to shut off 
Christianity from the range and compass of European 
science and philosophy. 

There are those near us who would vehemently affirm 



JULIAN. 221 



tlie contrary of this, and who will tell ns that all thinsjs, 
or all things worth the knowing — the encyclopedia of a 
thorough college education, may be conveyed — Theism 
apart, and Christianity apart. Grant it that this may 
be done in a European college ; but no such abnegation 
of the liighest truths will be effected without having 
recourse to an aifectation of ignorance, the animus of 
which every youth in the class will perfectly understand, 
and, understanding it, he is so far protected from its ill 
influence. But carry out this same a?iimiis, with its 
thin coating of attectation, to India. What the result 
will there be needs hardly to be afiirnicd. 

To the Hindoo, thus instructed in those physical 
sciences which are fatal to his Hindooism, there can 
remain nothing but the pantheism which is ever near at 
hand to the Oriental intellect, and which, when hard- 
ened in passing through the fires of the physical sciences, 
becomes an indurated atheism, for ever impenetrable to 
every softening influence. The Mahometan, taught to 
think freely as to his prophet's mission, and if he be 
taught nothing as to the relative force of the Christian 
argument, finds, in his rejection of his own faith, reason 
enough for rejecting that of his teacher; if indeed he 
can think that his teacher is possessed of any faith at 
all. 

In India, Prohibitite Education, carried out in 
colleges, can be nothing else than a training of youth in 
a species of atheism which shall qualify the upper ranks 
of the native races for looking on with more than Ori- 
ental indifference, while the masses of the people, in 
some future outburst — not far off — are wreaking now a 
postponed vengeance, upon their European oppressors. 

A wrongful policy may be maintained and kept in 



222 ESSAY VI. 

vigour long— from generation to generation ; for it has 
no remorses, no scruples, no hesitations, no shame, no 
reluctances. But a mistaken policy, well intentioned, 
will not fail quickly to get itself set fast in the imprac- 
ticable : — it was full of incongruities when it started 
and these incongruities break out upon the surface as 
sheer absurdities, after a very little time. So will it be 
with the endeavour to carry out in India a scheme of 
Prohibitive Education. Prohibit nothing — or nothing 
which is not immoral, and then Christianity comes into 
its due position— not as " our religion," but as the one 
and the only religion in the world. 



ESSAY VII. 

" WITHOUT CONTROVERSY." 

KAI o/xoXo/oj/x;'vwf — "confessedly." A sense must be 
souglit for in which this apostolic phrase* might be ap- 
plied, either to the "great mystery" which then and 
there is named, or to any other article of a Christian 
man's belief; for, in fact, all principles are controverted, 
and every article of every creed is disputed, and is 
denied, and is rejected, by some around us ; and even 
by some to whose exceptions a degree of respect is due. 
So it is now ; and so it has been in every age ; and so 
it was at the moment when this pastoral epistle was 
written, and despatched. 

But in this place, as we are not undertaking to ex- 
pound Scripture, we need not stop to ascertain, with 
precision, the sense \^ich the inspired writer might 
have attributed to this phrase, as he here employs it. 
He might perhaps use the word adverbially, or for 
emphasis, and in no very strict or definite sense, but 
merely as a word suited to express his own strong feel- 
ing of the certainty of that one great truth, which, 
surpassing, as it does, the utmost compass of human 
thought, is nevertheless the truth, most firmly to be 
held, as it is the foundation of every other article of 
Christian theology. We may thus think, and pass on ; 
and then ask — In what sense, by aid of an allowable 

* 1 Tim. iii. 16. 



224 ESSAY VII. 

accommodation perhaps, we, at this time, may apply 
the same word to any doctrine, or article of belief, 
which we om-selves embrace with the fullest confidence? 
How shall we bring ourselves to think of any of our 
elementary convictions, and, always supposing that we 
are well informed, as to the history of religious opinions, 
and the present state of controversies throughout Chris- 
tendom, shall affirm concerning it, that it is received and 
assented to — o^oXoyovii^svo^g — " without controversy ?" 
There is no one element of faith to which, in this sense, 
we may apply this phrase. Merely to affirm of a doc- 
trine that if it be true, it is confessedly " a great mys- 
tery," is little better than to affirm a truism in a frigid 
manner. 

There is, however, a sense in Avhich a Christian man 
thoroughly informed, may so speak of his own faith, and, 
severally, of its elements — and it is thus. Let us take 
the instance of those — and there are many such at this 
time — who, whether or not they may have passed 
through a course of theological training, as if prepara- 
tory to the exercise of the Christian ministry, are fairly 
well-informed on all those subjects that are usually 
included in a clerical education. We suppose such per- 
sons to be surrounded also with the necessary aids for 
prosecuting studies of this order, and for recovering 
what they may have forgotten : they are, more or less, 
conversant with religious history, ancient and modern ; 
and as to the controversies of recent times, such persons 
are, we may suppose, acquainted with them, and they 
know at what stage or jDoint the always-advancing mass 
of religious, and of irreligious thought, is just now 
making a momentary pause. To such persons, there- 
fore, there will not be room to address the supercilious 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 225 

caution — " You would do well to read Mr. 's book, 

just out ; for when you have read it, you will see ground 
for lowering the tone i"n which you speak of your 
cherished, but antiquated, orthodoxy." 

Those who stand in a position such as that which we 
have now indicated, toward the world of religious 
thought — toward its controversies, and its beliefs, may 
often be tempted to envy the felicity of some simple- 
hearted Christian people around them, who, uninformed 
in such matters, and quite mindless as toward every spe- 
cies of gainsaying, are content to hold fast the " form 
of sound words" which they have been taught ; and 
thus they live, and breathe, and thrive, walking and 
resting in the sunny Beulah of untroubled fiiith. But 
we are forbidden, by the constitution as well of the 
intellectual as of the moral world, to recede from a posi- 
tion to which we have spontaneously advanced : — it is 
not allowable to take up the cup of knowledge, and 
then to forget that we have tasted it : the taste will 
remain, as a bitterness on the palate, ever afterwards, 
unless we go on to sip, and to drink anew. Be ignorant, 
or, if you would not be ignorant, then learn whatever 
may be learned. Tliink not at all ; or else think on to 
the end. 

Nevertheless, although it is not permitted to us to 
fall back upon the immunities of simple ignorance, if 
once these have been foi'feited, tliere is still a course 
that may be taken, and in taking which a more solid 
peace may be secured than the peace of ignorance can 
be, and where a safer anchorage may be found than is 
that of the shoal of mindless assentation. 

Those who, through life, have acquainted themselves 
with controversy, and who, perhaps, may have touched 



226 ESSAY VII. 

it themselves, and who, within their circles, have used 
and acquired the style and habit of argumentation — 
those who are often meeting and refuting objections — 
those who are accustomed to the wearing of armour, 
and the poising of w^eapons — such persons well know 
how difficult it is for them to fix their attention upon 
great truths, thought of apart from all the denials of 
them — on this side, and on that side. Even into the 
retirements of the most secluded and abstracted sanc- 
tum of religious meditation, the grim spectre of an anta- 
gonist makes its way, and, at a glance of the forbidding 
and pallid visage, a vigilant logic wakes up, and an 
encounter is threatened ! 

But there comes a time in a man's course, earlier or 
later, even of such an one as we are here supposing, 
when he may well, and safely, and much to his personal 
comfort, shut the door against argument and contradic- 
tion, and when he may bring himself into near com- 
munion with the truths of his belief — apart from the 
denial of them, or as if what is true were, in all men's 
esteem, " confessedly" true. He thus forgets the opi- 
nions of others, and he believes himself at liberty to say 
— Now, at length, and henceforward to the end of life, 
let me rest upon my beliefs, as axioms that are held — 
hixoXoyov^xivc^g — in their indisj)uted and azure-like simpli- 
city and certainty. 

This faith of a Christian man's meditative evening 
hour, we may imagine to be enjoyed where he looks 
around upon the backs of many books which he has 
read, but which he will not open again ; and yet his faith 
must not be contemned, as if it were a blind faith ; for 
a man is not blind who, having been conversant, long 
enough, with the stormy things of earth, turns the eye 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 227 

to the region where storms do not arise. The question 
comes then as to wliat those beliefs are wliich, safely, and 
with advantage, may be brought inside the consecrated 
enclosure of religious meditation, and which may be 
privileged as principles that are held — controversy apart. 

SEcriox I. 

If there were room for a question, whether I should 
admit mysteries, and perhaps "great mysteries," mto 
my creed, then this doubt would be removed at the out- 
set ; for mysteries that are deep and impenetrable hover 
around its very first article, which is to set forth what 
I believe concerning Human Nature, and the human 
■family, and, consequently, my own place and destiny, as 
thereto related. 

But why, contrary to every systematic rule and custom 
in creed-making, why begin this with an article of this 
sort ? The reason for dohig so may be thus exemplified 
by aid of an analogy. The first step in acquiruig a true 
knowledge of the celestial bodies — their magnitudes, 
distances, and motions — is the measuring an arc of the 
earth's surface : this initial and unambitious operation 
precludes many and grievous errors concerning my own 
standing-place in the material universe; and, moreover, 
it puts into my hand the sure means of carrying elaborate 
calculations outward and upward to vast distances, even 
as far as to the outskirts of this planetary system, if not 
beyond that system. If ancient astronomers had been 
content to take this course, or, if taking it, they had 
followed it out, what we now call " our modern astro- 
nomy," would, by this time, have been an "ancient 
astron miy," and yet true. 



228 ESSAY VII, 

In making a commencement where I now make it, for 
finding the starting-point of a creed, I escape the danger 
which has been so fearlessly met by the framers of sym- 
bols, namely, the presuming myself to know vastly more 
than I do, or ever can know. The Divine Nature, so 
far as it may be apprehended by the human mind, must 
become known to it in quite another manner than that 
of abstract speculation, or of logical deduction. And 
yet systems of theology are made up of propositions 
concerning the Infinite Being, which propositions, if I 
follow them out in logical order, lead me not into hght, 
but into utter darkness — the darkness either of universal 
doubt, or of material atheism. 

But now, in giving expression to my belief concerning 
this — its foremost article, touching human nature, and 
the moral system, I have said that mysteries attach to 
it : — what are they, or why admit them ? Human nature 
is a fact^ which is under my eye ; and if, with human 
nature spread out before me, I am w^illing to abstain 
from uncertain speculations, and to keep within the 
range of unquestionable realities — if I refuse to follow 
any vague inferences ; and if I repress, and hold in con- 
tempt, mere emotions and sympathies, which are fruit- 
less and idle, then, and on these conditions, may I not 
preserve my belief concerning the human family, quite 
exempt from mysteries ? Not so ; or at the best, in the 
place of mysteries, which may indeed trouble me, I shall 
come in front of contradictions and incoherences which 
must actually stagger and paralyze the reasoning faculty. 
A physiology of man which excludes all mystery, can 
be nothing more than an anatomy : it gives the parts^ 
the solids, the fluids, the mechanism; but it does not 
give the functions. 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 229 

But were not ancient schemes of human nature much 
less encumbered with mystery, and far more lightsome, 
and easy of apprehension than are any of those schemes 
or theories which I might now be willing to accept as 
expressive of my belief on this subject? It must be 
granted that they were so ; and yet I am not at liberty 
so to release inyself from the burden that has come upon 
me, for it has come in consequence of a great extension 
of my range of vision, and in consequence also of a 
knowledge of facts that were not heretofore known, or, 
if known, regarded ; and the burden of mystery has 
become as oppressive as it is in consequence also of the 
quickening of moral sentiments which had slept for ages, 
even throughout the times of the ancient philosophy. 
The perplexities which darken my prospect, and sad- 
den my meditative hours, could not in any way be dis- 
pelled, unless I might unknow what I have come to 
know, and then might cease to feel what I could not 
wish not to feel. If I labour to forget what I know, the 
mere attempt fixes it the more firmly in my memory ; 
and as to an attempted abatement of feeling, or a facti- 
tious quashing of any sensibility, which approves itself 
as of genial and beneficent quahty, this would be — even 
if I could attempt it, a brutalizing operation ; and better 
were it to become insensible and earthly, in the vulgar 
method of a life of animal indulgence and sordid selfish- 
ness, than to force myself into it by a process of philo- 
sophical sophistication. 

As member of the community of mind, at this time, 
and as a partaker of that religious and intellectual train- 
insr which is therein to be had, I have underii-one a dis- 
cipline which, in its consequences, brings the shadow of 
the most sombre mysteries to rest upon this — the first 



230 ESSAY VTI. 

article of my creed, concerning human nature, and the 
state and prospects of the human family. How this 
comes about may thus be explained. 

I may be in company, for a length of time, with some 
one who is conspicuously eminent above his fellows, and 
vastly my superior, in wisdom and virtue. I contem- 
plate with involuntary admiration his self-command, his 
self-denial, his active benevolence, his energy, courage, 
and assiduity in labouring for the good of others; I 
observe also his humility and modesty; I admire the 
translucence of his character, and its strength. But this 
admiration, and this esteem, which grow in me from 
day to day, are not mere sentiments of awe, and respect, 
and affection ; for there attends these feelings, or soon 
follows them, a kindling emotion which is perhaps new 
to me. I must not call it ambition^ for it has a high and 
a pure intention, to which this term does not well apply. 
This new impulse is an energy, deeply stirring my whole 
nature; and it utters itself in fervent ejaculations of this 
sort : — Would that I were such as is this my admirable 
friend ! Shall I not emulate his virtues ? Shall I not 
take him as my pattern, and follow his steps, and become, 
in some measure, like him ? 

This emulous and hopeful impulse I feel to be the 
indication of a law of my moral structure which, 
although it may long have been latent, and might con- 
tinue latent, ought to stand as the axiom of any true 
philosophy of human nature. If now the person whom 
I thus acknowledge to be so much my superior, were 
one of a higher order of beings — a member of the celes- 
tial hierarchy, the conditions of whose existence are 
essentially unlike those to which I am subjected, so that 
his virtue, and my virtue, can have no convertible 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 231 



value, ami so that there could be no room for emulation 
or imitation on my ])art — ^then, and on that supposition, 
the vivid emotion which just now I have spoken of, 
must instantly subside, and in the place of it there 
would come over me a lifeless and powerless awe : — 
veneration, love, perhaps ; but it must be a love that 
would be ineftective and unavailing. 

Or let me take an instance of another kind. The 
being whom I acknowledge as my superior in wisdom 
and virtue, may be one who, as to his natural endow- 
ments, his intelligence, and power of thought, is not my 
equal, but far otherwise; nor, as to his early advan- 
tages, have they been such as to put him, in the world's 
esteem, on a level with me, or near it. Nevertheless I 
yield to him a place of esteem in my inmost thoughts, 
to which, as if it wore due to myself, I dare not pre- 
tend : he is my superior. In this case the same con- 
sciousness of a power in myself, though latent, or very 
feebly alive, is awakened, and it is pungently stimu- 
lated, though in another manner. Here is my humble 
friend who has got the start of me so far on the ui)ward 
path, notwithstanding the lower range of his intellect, 
and the many defects of his early training. What is it 
that I have been doing these many years ? With what 
trifles have I been occupied ? Why have I not become 
— what he is — yes, and much more than this — advan- 
taged by my stronger reason, and the various culture it 
has had ! Here again I recognize a first principle in 
human nature — its causative moral power — to think 
wrongly concerning which, or to allow sophistries of 
any kind, philosophical or theological, to cloak it with 
evasions, must be of the most serious ill consequence : it is 
certain that, whatever may be lost sight of in my creed, 



232 ESSAY VII. 

this prime article, on which hinges my faith in the reality 
of the moral system, must not be wanting in it. I mui 
take care to secm*e a foremost place for this belief. 

In these experiences there is a tacit recognition o 
the principle, that the moral element in human nature 
is its leading or paramount element, and is that toward 
which the mental organization tends, as the cen- 
tre or final cause of the structure. The sight of 
eminent wisdom and virtue excites an emotion of 
admiration and esteem which is involuntary and irresis- 
tible ; and beyond this there comes an emotion taking 
eiFect upon my personal consciousness, and inciting me 
to move forward on the same path. Yet no such im- 
pulse takes effect upon me unless there be also a con- 
sciousness, feeble or vivid, of a power so to do. I gaze 
upward as the eagle soars cloudward, and may think 
his power of wing enviable ; but the idle wish to over- 
take him in the sky has no momentum in it, for nature 
has denied me wings. 

Thus far my experience of human nature does not 
necessarily throw an inference forward beyond the pre- 
sent economy of mundane life : to gather such an inference 
I must look at the same human nature on another side. 

A purpose of benevolence, perhaps, may have im- 
pelled me to visit a den wherein the victims of our 
" civilization" are enduring all the misery which body 
and soul may be conscious of; and w^here they are subject 
to those worse miseries which they have ceased to be con- 
scious of. Sad exhibition indeed ! and yet great princi- 
ples maintain their supremacy here as elsewhere, but 
under new modifications. I fix the eye upon some one 
of the inmates of this den : — flesh and blood like my 
own, and the rudiments of every sensibility and afifection 



> 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 233 

wliich I clierisli in my own nature arc there. And yet 
what would it be to be linked in companionsliip with this 
being for a day! What but a martyrdom! For he is as 
sensual as a swine, as fierce as a wolf; he is knavish, petu- 
lant, and wayward, and utterly impatient of remonstrance, 
entreaty, and rebuke; he will have none of my counsels, 
and he flings defiance at me if I insult him with my 
pity. Yet why sketch this rude outline? Better ascend 
the filthy steps of this cellar, uttering some apothegm 
of a frigid philosophy — a text from a page of our 
" sociological science" — and say, as to this brother of 
mine, he is indeed a pitiable object; but we should 
think of him as the blameless victim of our faulty insti- 
tutions, and of the unlucky physical conditions of his 
place, beneath the wheel of the great machine : it was 
his misfortune to inherit a depraved animal constitu- 
tion, and every circumstance of his course in life, from 
— the cradle ! — the babe i^ever slumbered in a cradle ! — 
from his mother's breast ! — that breast was destitute 
alike of milk and of fondness ! — every influence from 
the first hour to this hour, has been the worst possible. 
How much blame, then, can I think is this victim's due? 
Boldly say — none! 

But again I encounter this same wretched being, and 
this time it is abroad in the noisy court, or alley, that I 
find him. There is a brawl : — unprovoked, he is inflict- 
ing grievous injuries upon one who is not his match in 
strength : — it is a wanton and purposeless cruelty, a 
mere outspend of savageness, to no end. Sad is it to 
listen to the screams of tlie sufferer, trampled on and 
kicked in the gutter. But at this sight my " social 
science" maxims snap in sunder, and fail me quite ; for I 
feel, and am ready to act too, at the impulse of a con- 



234 ESSAY VII 

trary belief. What ! — this monster of cruelty, is he not 
blameworthy f We shall soon show him that we think 
him to be so. Away with him : he deserves ten times 
more punishment than the law is able to inflict upon 
him. 

Now if I am told that I am giving way to an unrea- 
sonable impulse of mere feehng, and that instead of aiding 
the law in its purpose of inflicting punishment upon this 
wretch, I should "be true to my philosophy, and should 
cease to think of even the worst outrages as critnes : — 
then it comes to this, that in the structure of my mind 
there is an instinct of justice so powerful, so irresistibly 
strong, and a forecasting of retribution such, as that, 
not even the most extreme imaginable instance, in which 
the desire of vengeance should give way to cold disgust, 
can avail to quash, or to divert the emotion. 

Here, then, is an ungovernable impulse, prompting me 
to inflict punishment where, if all the circumstances be 
duly considered, it might seem to be only a new wrong 
to inflict any. This is a fact in human nature which 
carries with it several weighty inferences. To find these 
inferences I must carry home the case I have imagined, 
and consider it as it . may have a bearing upon my own 
habits of thought, and my personal anticipations of a 
future, and it may be, a final, retribution. 

I find that this brutal wrong-doer, if I converse with 
him, has become, as one might say, so encrusted with 
the hideous notions of a perverted morality, as that any 
appeal I might make to his conscience, or to his sense 
of justice or humanity, is turned aside: he mocks my 
ethics ; — he has his own code. Such, I may coolly say, 
such are the infatuations that spring out of misery and 
vice, rendering any process of cure almost hopeless! 



WITHOUT CONTROVEKSY. 235 

]Jiit now may there not be iiifatuations of a silken sort, 
wliic'h spread tliemselves around my own egotistic habits 
of feeling, and which have the eftect of rendering me 
more or less miconscious of what it might greatly con- 
cern me to know and think of? this is not improbable ; 
and if so, then it may also be true that — if all the con- 
ditions of the two cases were fully understood, and if 
they were fairly allowed for, the vehemence of the appe- 
tite for retribution would loosen its grasp of its one 
miserable object, and fix its talons on another. 

On rare occasions, when enoi'mous crimes are perpe- 
trated, and when the innocent are barbarously wronged, 
there is a loud outcry for vengeance. Human nature 
utters itself with passion ; but yet it is not a false utter- 
ance : it is a true, though an impetuous vaticination. 
The thunderbolts of Heaven are called for, and Heaven, 
in its own day, will answer the call. But now if there 
is to be a future reckoning in any case, and if any 
deeds are to be brought into court, that reckoning, 
undoubtedly, will be universal ; it will be impartial ; it 
will be unexceptive: — that inquiry will leave nothing 
unsought for, nor will it ever be baffled in its search. 

It is impossible that I can think otherwise than thus 
of the future judicial proceedings of a central and a 
Supreme Authority : the Righteousness of Heaven will 
be no respecter of persons. No j)rocess of reasoning — 
no labours of the human mind, will avail, or have ever 
availed hitherto, to disperse the heavy disquietudes 
that arise from the consciousness of individual blame- 
worthiness, and the forethought of a future reckoning. 
How idle, for any such purposes, are the dreams of the 
pantheist ! The forebodings of an awakened conscience 
are not to be assuaged by any devices so flimsy as these. 



236 ESSAY VII 

How then, if not so ? In no other way than by finding — 
if it may anywhere be found — an authentic and a trust- 
worthy Religion. 



SECTION II. 

By methods of abstract thought I may frame for 
myself a Religion which shall be theoretically coherent, 
and apparently probable; but then it stands contra- 
dicted, on the right hand, and on the left hand, by other 
theories or schemes, each more or less consistent and 
reasonable, and any one of which might well be accepted 
in its stead. At least some one of these rival systems, 
even though it may be of inferior quality, may prevail 
over my better convictions in a season of intellectual 
abatement, or of moral infirmity : in an evil hour I may 
become ensnared by a sophistry which, in a brighter 
hour, I should reject with contempt. It is at the urgent 
prompting of the moral instincts, and as driven forward 
by the forebodings that attend these instincts, that I 
seek for a religion ; and if it is to assuage the anxieties 
of an enlightened conscience, the religion which I am to 
accept should not stand contradicted, or be brought 
into question by any sort of evidence, or any counter- 
testimony which is of the same quality as that which 
supports itself: as, for instance, abstract reasoning, 
against abstract reasoning; — or human testimony, appa- 
rently good, opposed to other human testimony, appa- 
rently good. There is only one religion, hitherto known 
in the world, which occupies this position, and which I 
may accept, and may rely upon as uncontradicted and 
authentic, and trustworthy, after informing myself fully 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 237 

jiiul exactly of its evidences. But liow is it that I can 
acquiesce in the religion of the Bible, and receive it — 
ofjLoXo^ oujas'vojf — as " confessedly" true, since there are so 
many who reject it? 

It is thus — I am now making no distinction between 
the Old Testament and the New, as if the latter might 
be accepted, although the former were rejected. For 
if the older writings are not the records of a continuous 
message from God to man, then I decline to trouble 
myself with any research concerning the merits or pre- 
tensions of the later writings. Whatever may be the 
distinctions which hereafter I may incline to insist upon 
between the one and the othLn-, just now I make no such 
disthiction ; but I take the Bible as a W'hole, and I accept 
it as the record of a continuous Divine Revelation, and 
I so take it with a cordial acquiescence, and, after labo- 
rious inquiry, I hold it to be true, in its own sense — 
oixoXoyov^xivus — " confessedly" so — notwithstanding the 
contrary profession of many, and of many educated men 
like myself; and I do so without hesitation, and without 
arrogance ; and I should do so, even if all were against 
me, or a thousand to one, or ten thousand to one. 

The rejection of the Holy Scriptures as true in their 
own sense, namely, as being a direct message from God, 
may at this time be considered as arising from two 
sources ; for, first, there are the contradictions of 
abstract philosophy ; and these, at this time, are resolva- 
ble into the pantheistic and the atheistic theories ; — the 
two, merging alwfiys the one into tlie other ; for although 
these paradoxes may seem to be exclusive, the one of 
the other, the ground of distinction between them sinks 
away whenever I attempt to set foot upon it. The two 
schemes are at one on this point, that they both treat 



238 ESSAY VII. 

the moral sense in human nature as a delusion, and both 
of them deny the reality of that system of government — 
present and future, from a belief in which the notions of 
virtue and vice, of good and evil, and of individual 
responsibility and religiovis relationship to the Supreme 
Being, take their rise. In relation, therefore, to the 
religion of the Scriptures, pantheism and atheism are not 
to be considered as two systems, but as one. 

Knowing, as I do, that these theories of the universe 
have beset the regions of Abstract Thought in all times, 
and, in fact, that they haunt the human intellect, and that, 
at this present moment, they avail to paralyze the reli- 
gious convictions of many, it would not be safe on my 
part to dismiss them, as if in ignorance of their actual 
presence, and of the influence they exert ; for it might 
be said to me — If you had only acquainted yourself with 
the modern form of these ancient philosophic systems, 
you would have found that they are far more substan- 
tial than you seem to imagine; and, in fact, that it is 
more easy to contemn them blindly, than fairly to refute 
them. 

So thinking, I therefore inform myself concerning 
both these doctrines, and I take care to know the 
extent of their meaning; and my finding concerning 
them is this: first, that they are paradoxes of that kind, 
of which there are several, that go in pairs, the one of 
them serving as a place of retreat when we are in con- 
flict with the absurdities of the other. At such a time 
we look about for any way of escape. Thus, when I am 
beaten ofl" from atheism, which is the denial of the Infi- 
nite, and the One, I rush into the arms of the other, 
which is the denial of the finite ; and yet when there, I 
find only a momentary breathing time ; for I quickly 



WITHOUT CONTKOVERSY. 239 



feel that atheism is in fiict an easier, or more somnific 
pliilosopliy to live luuler than pantheism. Besides, this 
oscillative antagonism between incompatible paradoxes 
is only a sample of several which are known of 
old, to breed inveterate discords in the house of 
abstract speculation. It is thus that I may be bandied 
about between idealism and materialism ; — between a 
world without substance, and a world that is all solid. 
If the abstractive faculty mistakes its function in the 
intellectual economy, then an eternal jar is the only con- 
sequence ; — and better were it to lodge out of doors, 
among the herd, than to be inmate in a mansion where 
husband and wife are wrangling, and striving for the 
mastery, every day, all the year round. 

But this is not the whole of the reason why, after due 
inquiry, I should turn away the car, for ever, from the 
contradictions of these abstruse speculations. They do 
not touch, or in any way ajQTect, the matter in hand. I 
am in search of a religion at the impulse (mainly) of my 
instinctive belief of the reality of the moral system of 
which I am a member. Now this belief in conscience 
is not an opinion which I may continue to profess, or 
may cease to profess, in consequence of the reading of a 
book, or the hearing of a course of lectures. It is a per- 
manent element of human nature : — it is common to 
mankind in all times and countries. This instinct flushes 
the cheek of every sensitive child, and it prevails over 
tlie laborious sophistications of the philosopher. Tliis 
belief is cherished as an inestimable jewel by the best 
and the purest of human beings; — and it is bowed to, in 
dismay, by the foulest and the worst : — its rudiments 
are a monition of eternal truth, whispered in the ear of 
infancy : — its articulate announcements are a dread fore- 



240 ESSAY VII. 

doom ringing in the ears of the guilty adult. You say 
you can bring forward a hundred educated men, who, 
at this time, will profess themselves to be no believers 
in a moral system ; but I will rebut their testimony by 
the spontaneous and accordant voices of as many mil- 
lions of men as you may please to call for, on the other 
side. 

Therefore, as it concerns the liberty I feel myself pos- 
sessed of, for accepting the religion of the Scriptures, 
notwithstanding the contradictions of pantheists and 
atheists, the state of the question is this : — pantheism 
and atheism cannot both be true, but they may both 
be false; and the residual probability of the truth 
of the one over the other is, at the most, quite an inap- 
preciable quantity, when it is brought to weigh against 
a universal instinct of nature — a prime element of the 
human structure — an impulse, and an involuntary per- 
suasion w^hich, if indeed it might be wholly deadened 
within us, would leave man on a level with the brute, 
and men incapable of any social form of existence. 

But in the second place, the Scriptures, Jewish and 
Christian, are denied to be, in any special sense, a reve- 
lation, or message from God, by those who assail the 
proper evidences supporting their claims as such. This 
kind of contradiction I at once admit to be pertinent to 
the question in hand, and, therefore, to be deaf to it 
would be not merely highly unsafe, but unreasonable. 

If in this Essay I were undertaking the defence of my 
Biblical faith, as against all comers, it might be required 
of me to bring into view, in order, and to refute, seria- 
tim^ the several counter-pleas which, in these times, have 
been urged as the grounds of their non-belief by notable 
writers. Instead of attempting any such operose task 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 241 



as tliis, I am attempting iiotliing more than a setting 
forth, for my individual satisfaction, the grounds on 
wliich I receive and bow to the canonical writings, and 
accept the profound mysteries they may contain, as — 
oaoXo^ ou,ai'vwj — a message and a law, sent to me from 
heaven. 

Xow with this view, I may at once release myself 
from the imagined obligation to examine with care and 
labour those schemes of anti-Christian opinion which the 
authors of them have abandoned as impracticable and 
nugatory, or which their successors, labouring on the 
same field, and animated by the same zeal, have treated 
with contempt, or which they cease to bring forward. 
On this safe ground, therefore (after knowing what these 
cast-off arguments are) I dismiss the entire mass of anti- 
Christian ribaldry and impeitinence which satisfied the 
reckless impiety of Europe dui'ing the times of Voltaire 
and Rousseau. In like manner, and with a conscious- 
ness of security, I cease to concern myself henceforth,. 
any more, with that scheme which, in Germany, for a 
length of time, was accepted as a sufficient explication 
of the historical enigma concerning the origin of the 
evangelic memoirs ; the story being admitted as mainly 
true, and the writers honest ;— but the supernatural 
portions were alleged to be misconceptions on the part 
of these rude and uninstructed persons. This theory 
has long ago given way to a inore strict critical method : 
— it is abandoned, and in its place there has come up — 
to be wondered at for a moment — a theory of the Gos- 
pel history, boldly conceived and elaborately set forth, 
but which, under the weight of its own marvellous im- 
probability, has silently gone down :— the mythic " Life 
of Jesus" — is a scheme which I can never make to con- 

Jl 



242 ESSAY VII. 

sist with facts that . are as certain in my view, as are 
the events of ray OAvn life, last year. This mythic theory 
is a mass of incoherences ; it has however been ser- 
viceable in purging the atmosphere of the effluvia of the 
decayed schemes of the preceding time. 

Moreover, the prodigious painstaking, and the inge- 
nuity, and the tempered virulence of this last attempt 
to rid the world of Christianity, have given evidence 
of the extreme difficulty of the task which those under- 
take who, on the ground of historic criticism, labour to 
disengage what is, in their view, credible in the Gospel 
history, from that which they are predetermined to 
reject as incredible. The human mind, advantaged by 
all imaginable aids of learning, has exhausted its forces 
in the endeavour to rend the supernatural from off its 
attachments to this history. 

The state of the case, then, is this : — modern criti- 
cism, historic and literary, leaves me in undisputed 
possession of the books (with two or three exceptions) 
that are included in the Canon — the Bible, as I have it. 
There is not, so far as I know, at this time afloat, any 
accepted and available anti-Christian solution of the 
enigma regarding the origin of Christianity : non-belief, 
at this moment, has couie to a stand-still ; for it has no 
fresh solution of this enigma in readiness. Then there 
is this significant indication of the relative merits of the 
anti-Christian argument, namely, this — That every 
recent writer (of any mark or note) who has signalized 
himself on that side, and who has set out with a pro- 
fessed willingness to admit as much of Christianity as 
he can, has receded further and further from his first 
position : — he is seen labouring to ascend a slippery 
incline, but at every step he slides back, and it is not 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 243 

long belbre he comes to a breathing place — on the dead 
levels of material atheism, where alone a man may 
believe that he has no further to cro. 

For myself, instead of finding the supernatural element 
in the ]>il)lical writings a difliculty, I should be met by 
a dithculty most perplexing, if I were require-d to receive 
the religion which I am in need of, apart from any 
supernatural sealing of the documents containing it, 
and destitute of an authentic signature. Such a sealing, 
or (might I use the word) such an endorsement, would 
be needed even if the revelation related to nothing 
liigher than mundane o^jinions, or every-day rules of 
conduct ; for I must possess the means of distinguishing 
these enactments from other opinions and rules — like to 
them, but not the same. 

When, liowever, I find that the principal subject of 
this written or documentary revelation transcends, im- 
measurably far, the range of human thought, and that 
it carries me in meditation within the circle of an 
economy of which I have no knowledge by any other 
means, then, and in that case, I not merely expect, and 
desire, and need also, a sure and ample attestation of it 
from on high ; but this attestation, of whatever sort it 
may be, stands forward as a part and a sample of that 
which is so attested. I mean to say that those visible 
acts of power which indicate the Divine Presence, are 
always less than the message itself; and in hearing and 
accepting the message, I have already given in my assent 
to the attendant miracle. 

It depends entirely upon the position which I take 
whether miracles, such as those of the Gospel history, 
shall stand before r;ie as matters not to be submitted to, 
if by any means I may evade the disagreeable necessity 



244 ESSAY VII, 

of doing so ; or, as congruous accompaniments of a dis- 
pensation which is to connect this j)i'esent world with 
another — a world in which what here I call miracle, is 
there order. 

It is, therefore, without repugnance that I admit the 
supernatural element of the religion which I welcome 
as the gift of Heaven. But now — the attestation ad- 
mitted — what is it to which it should be held to attach? 
What is it to which the Divine signature is indeed 
appended ? This is a question which at all times claims 
an answer, and which especially demands an answer at 
this present moment. 



SECTION III. 

In accepting the Scriptures of the Old and New 
Testaments, as conveying a Divine Revelation, and as 
entitled to a deference which I yield to no other writings, 
ancient or modern, I am confronted by a question to 
which some sort of answer must be given. Is it every- 
thing which I find enclosed between the two boards of 
my Bible, that I receive and bow to, as sent to me from 
Heaven, and as sanctioned by supernatural attestations ? 

Controversy is rife on this point ; and I find honest 
and well-informed men giving discordant replies to the 
question ; and these replies are uttered often with an 
eagerness, and even an asperity, which is usual in reli- 
gious controversies wlien, on both sides, there is a con- 
sciousness of some incompleteness or incoherence in the 
solution that is given of the pi-oblem in debate. With- 
the one purpose in view, which has been professed in 
this Essay, it would seem that I should hold off from 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 245 



jviouiul wlieroupon so m;iny coinbatnnts are in conflict. 
Nevertheless, as I tliink, there is a standing room even 
liere, wliereupon a belief may be made to rest — " con- 
tioversy apart." 

The discussion which is still open and undetermined 
on the subject of the " Inspiration of Holy Scripture," 
is the inevitable, as it is the 2^oper consequence, y^V*-^, of 
the greatly advanced state of the art of criticism, and 
pre-eminently, of Biblical criticism. The assiduity, the 
intelligence, the improved methods, and the enlarged 
means, which give to this science or art its present high 
condition of effectiveness, and of certainty, have drawn 
thoughtful and well-informed men forward insensibly to 
take their stand upon an arena, whence some of them, 
as it seems, would gladly find a way of retreat ; but this 
cannot be. 

This controversy, in the second place^ is a result, in a 
general way, of that tendency toward systematic com- 
pleteness, or, as one might call '\l, forensic determination^ 
which is a prominent characteristic of these times. AYe 
hear this utterance on all sides— "You say you believe 
this and that concerning the Canonical writings ; tell us, 
then, precisely what it is that you intend, and ^vhat it is 
that you believe ; and why you believe it." Nothing else 
ought to be looked for, in these times, than the putting 
of a question of this sort to those who profess aloud their 
submission to the sole and sui)reme authority of these 
writings. 

But there is another, and a less osteiisible moving 
force to which this present controversy owes much of 
its depth and meaning. Religious thought has made a 
marked advance in these times. Religious fervour — 
declining, has, at each retreating step, measured the 



246 ESSAY VII. 

space through which religious se7isitiveness has moved 
forward ; and at this moment we are driven at once to 
wish that our personal devotion was more cordial than 
it is, and our relative sympathies much less alive, than 
they are ; or such as they were in years past. This pro- 
gress—and progress it is, could not have any other 
result than to give point, or let me say, poignancy to 
many questions, that occur in the course of Biblical ex- 
position, A style of apologetic commentary which the 
readers of Matthew Henry, and of Thomas Scott also, 
were content with, does not satisfy the nicer feelings of 
the religious community at this time. From this discon- 
tent, whether it be articulate, or stifled, there arise end- 
less discussions— questionings that are never brought to 
an issue, concerning the extent and the conditions of that 
inspiration of Scripture which, in general terms, we all 
acknowledge. 

An ill consequence of this present undetermined state 
of our behef concerning " inspiration " is, a habit it gives 
rise to, on the part of the authorized expositors of Scrip- 
ture, namely, that of quashing intelligent inquiry, as the 
symptom of "an unrenewed nature;" or of evading it, 
by means of explanations which are satisfactory neither 
to the speaker himself; nor to his hearers. 
^ What can be done to bring things into a more auspi- 
cious position ? I will not presume to answer this ques- 
tion ; but, instead of doing so, set forth what to myself 
is solid ground of belief— "controversy apart." 

As well rid the question, at this point, of such things as 
admit of no question, or of none among honest and well- 
informed men. It is certain that Biblical criticism must 
pursue its course, and must ply its tools in its own manner, 
hereafter, as in the time passed. It must do so freely and 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 247 

inanfiilly, and it must be exempt from that intimidation 
with whicli some mindless and superstitious men are fain 
to arrest its further progress. The stipulation which we 
insist upon, in giving this free scope to erudite criticism, 
i^ only this — that it shall be ingenuous, not petulant or caj)- 
tious ; that it shall be serious in a religious sense, and not ani- 
mated by a covert desire to make out a case against the 
Bible, and for the vexation of the religious commonwealth. 

Criticism employs itself in making sure the genuine- 
ness of books — in restoring the text of such books, so 
far as the means of doing so safely, are in our hands. 
AVithin the province also of criticism, or of its cognate 
expository methods, it comes to inquire concerning the 
canonicity of books singly considered, and thus to draw 
a line that shall be exclusive of all writings in behalf of 
which no claim can bo made good, of their direct connec- 
tion with the supernatural attestation that gives autho- 
rity to the books included in the canon. 

But it is not within the province of criticism to sit in 
judgment upon portions of canonical Scripture, on the 
])lea that such portions contain what we do not find it 
easy or possible to reconcile to our notions, either of the 
Divine Attributes, or of the abstract fitness of things. 
Rationalism, in the modern sense of the phrase, is the 
doing this. The rationalist provides himself with a the- 
ology to his liking, before he opens his Bible, and to this 
theology of his own, all things which he may find there 
must give way. From any such boldness as this I am 
held back,^rs^, by the consciousness of the limited range 
of the human mind, universally, as related to the sub- 
jects of religious tliought ; and then by my individual 
consciousness, and experience :ilso, of iniirmity of judg- 
ment, and moreover, by a recollection of those distor- 



tions of the intellect which have had their rise in the 
moral sentiments, and which may be far greater than I 
am distinctly aware of. 

On these grounds, therefore, and for other reasons of 
a smiilar kind, I reject rationalism; yet in doing so, I 
do not abrogate reason— reason in its fi-eest exei^ise,' I 
take ^vith me; but it is reason in listening and learning 
— ^it is not reason in dictating. 

On the other hand, in the daily opening of my Bible, 
I put far from me that faulty practice which, while it 
professes itself to be the antagonist of rationalism, is, in 
fact, nothing better than another phase of the same ar- 
rogance, and the same presumption. What I mean is 
the technical dogmatism which insists that the teaching 
of Scripture shall, in every case, show itself to be— part 
with part— in accordance with a predetermined scheme 
of doctrinal synthesis. The dogmatist is indeed willing 
to bow his reason to the authority of Scripture ; but he 
will not submit his scheme of interpretation to that 
authority: for this scheme, though he will not allow it, 
is dearer to-him than truth :— his logic is his idol. 

In seeking for truth, and in seeking for it in my Bible, 
and in labouring to possess myself of so much of this 
inestimable good as my individual infirmity, and the 
narrow limits of my spirit may be capable "of, and in 
desirmg a peaceful and uncontroverted holding of this 
truth, I have to look out for a principle, or practical rule, 
that shall meet the conditions under which religioul 
truth offers itself to me in a loritten revelation— a mes- 
sage from Heaven, which has been consigned to a collec- 
tion of books. 

At the outset, when I give place, even in the most tri- 
vial single instance, to criticism, and when I ask aid from 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 24() 



those who are accomplislicd in this line, and wlien I ac- 
cept from tliem any proper con-ection of the docnment 
— for Qxaniple, tlie emendation of a passage that lias, in 
whatever manner, become fjiulty — wlien I do tliis, I 
acknowledge that the Bible in my hand is not an audible 
utterance of syllables and words, from the skies. But 
then this admission includes, by necessity, another admis- 
sion, namely, this — that the Divine impartation of reli- 
gious truth has become commingled with the human 
impartation of it ; — or such a conveyance of it as is liable 
to the ordinary conditions, or, as we may say, to the 
accidents that attach to all things mundane — namely, 
accidents of the hand, of the eye, of the ear, of the 
memory ; as well as what depends on habits of verbal 
exactness, and on the technical habitudes of individual 
luiman minds. 

A consciousness of this intimate combination of what 
is human, with that which is Divine, in the canonical 
Scriptures, has given rise to many imaginary perplexi- 
ties; and these have suggested various "Theories of 
Inspiration," such as might serve, either to remove the 
difficulty a little further off, or to conceal the extent of 
it from our troubled sight. These palliative schemes 
have l>een founded upon the supposition that there are 
several species, or several degrees of inspiration ; — as, for 
instance, that of an indefinite control — that of the sug- 
gestion of thoughts merely, and that of the suggestion 
of the very words. But no such distinctions as these, 
nor any others which a taxed ingenuity may devise, 
yield me the aid which they promise. For, in the iiist 
place, I find no indication of them in the books tliem- 
selves : — there is no precautionary notice to this ellect, 
Buch as I find on the margin of some patristic volumes, 
11* 



250 ESSAY VII 

Cauth lege. These modern devices are arbitrary, and 
they are not susceptible of proof. Whether any such 
distinctions are true, in fact, or not, I can never know. 

But in the second place, even if I believed these dis- 
tinctions to be well-founded, and they may be real — 
it would remain for me to apply them to the books, 
severally, or to particular chapters, or to paragraphs, or 
to single verses, at my discretion ; and while so era- 
ployed, what would take place is obvious : — The 
scheme itself, or this hypothesis of a differential inspira- 
tion, is, as I may say, a remedy to be employed accord- 
ing to the urgency of the case : — it is an anodyne, 
to be used by the patient, j9ro re natd ; and in the 
use of this, as of every kind of alleviation, I shall insensi- 
bly go on from a rare, to a frequent recurrence to the 
dangerous preparation. I shall be tempted intemperately 
to avail myself of the saving hypothesis, until at length 
my Bible has become, like the Bible of the rationalist, 
a book of leisurely reference, but a book of no autho- 
rity ; and therefore, it will cease to yield me what I am 
in search of — a religion in which I may find rest. 

There is a path before me that is less embarrassed 
than this, and much less perilous too. I put far from 
me the arrogance of the dogmatist who, " wise beyond 
and above what is written," has fixed the limits beyond 
which the Divine Nature — the Infinite, may not 
stoop in its correspondence with the finite nature. 
That this condescension may go far, is a fact that is 
made conspicuous in the very conditions of a written 
revelation ; and this fiict I fully recognize in allowing 
criticism, in its own way, to do its oflice. But I recognize 
this fact or principle to a further extent, when I allow 
historical criticism at all to discuss or consider ques- 



WITHOUT CONTKOVERSY. 251 



tions concerning quotations of the ancient Scriptures in 
the Christian Scriptures; or concerning tlie exactness of 
any single liistorical statement. 

To these extents modern Biblical criticism is allowed to 
go, Avithout rebuke; or without rebuke from reasonable 
and instructed men. But where are we to stop ? Should 
historical criticism also be left to take its course with- 
out prohibition ? Or should any liberty at all be 
granted to /o<//a// criticism ? 

I find that if I were to go about to frame an answer 
to these questions, this answer must be made to rest 
upon the above-mentioned dogmatic ground of my 
presuming to know the limits which the Divine Wis- 
dom must prescribe for itself in holding communion 
with man. I tremble to think of attempting to define 
these limits, or to make any such conditions ; I define 
nothing, I insist upon no terms, I plant no hedge of my 
own around the Almighty; and therefore I am not 
careful to give any reply to the aboved-named questions. 

But if not, then do I not set wide open the door of 
rationalism ? — nay — I close it fast, and for ever. What 
I insist upon is a firm, and a thoroughly rational hold of 
the proper historic evidence attesting the supernatural 
element of the revelation which is conveyed in the 
canonical writings. So far as I have seen, it is the want 
of any such peremptory conviction, and of this clear- 
headed and firm-handed grasp of the facts of the Bible 
liistory — it is a confused, and a wavering, and an ill- 
digested belief in the reality of that history, whence 
come the pious alarms, and the jealousies, and the petu- 
lant outciies of unthinking religious persons, who 
denounce as a heretic every man who knows more than 
they know, and dai'es to say it. 



252 ESSAY VII, 

Let criticism upon Holy Scripture make " full proof 
of its ministry :" — let it do its office without fear or 
intimidation : criticism, literary, historic, and logical (if 
there be room for this). If criticism becomes captious, 
irreverent, sinister in its aims ; if it shows itself to be 
irreligious at heart, then I cease to listen to it. But so 
long as it is right-minded, and ingenuous, and is regard- 
ful of our first principle — that we have in hand a super- 
natural revelation — so long as criticism is thus minded, 
I welcome its advances: — it can do me no possible 
harm : — it may render me inestimable services ; and 
while it walks by my side, I have no tremours, as if 
phantoms were at hand. 

I read my Bible by the lamp of criticism as often as I 
may think it useful to do so. But I read my Bible 
daily, in the clear daylight of its own eifulgence. Shall 
I ask for a rule, for a formula, like . those of a school- 
book, according to which I am to discern between the 
Divine and the human in Holy Scripture ? Idle 
pedantry were this, and how superfluous ! I need no 
rule, when I walk forth, under the splendour of noon, and 
gaze upon the visible manifestations of the wisdom and 
goodness of the Creator. I fall into no errors in setting 
off the works of man, which mix themselves with the 
works of God, in this prospect. I know these at a 
glance, by their familiar characteristics. I pass my 
judgment upon them freely : — meantime that which 
indeed is Divine in the objects around me has its own 
inimitable aspect — its own indubitable characteristics — 
the things of God speak aloud their authorship : I am 
troubled by no perplexities. I ask not the help of the 
interpreter to make me sure that the works of God are 
indeed — the works of God. 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 253 

If this be metaphor, it is more than metaplior, for 
the instances, although they are two in form, are identi- 
cal in substance. You may demand in the one case, or 
in the other, a sharply defined discriminative test, by 
application of which I may preclude all chance of mis- 
take, nor ever incur the risk of attributing to God, that 
which belongs to man — or the contrary. All such 
alarms are unnecessary : — a daily and devout perusal 
of Holy Scripture brings with it its own ciiscriminative 
faculty — a perception, or I might call it, a tact^ a taste, 
and a sense of congruity which will seldom lead an intel- 
ligent Christian man astray. Or such errors as he may 
fall into will not, in any appreciable degree, affect the 
larore result of his consciousness of relisjious truth. 



SECTION IV. 

At the instigation of the moral sense, and upon the 
demand of emotions that are instinctive and universal, 
and at the prompting of forebodings which philosophy 
can neither disperse nor satisfy, I have come to seek for 
an authenticated religion — a religion countersigned in 
Heaven. I have found it in the Scriptures of the Old 
and New Testaments. And it is not only that I am 
willing to receive my religious beliefs from the Bible, 
for I ought to say that — after an industrious inquiry 
concerning this attestation, the liberty to hold myself 
loose from it, is gone ! It is a necessity of a fully in- 
structed reason that binds this belief upon me. It would 
be a less correct expression to say — after due inquiry, I 
consent to retain my faith in Holy Scripture; for the 
strict statement of the case is this — after inquiry, re- 



254 ESSAY VII. 

newed often and at different epochs of life, and after 
listening to many pleadings on the other side — after this, 
it is not that I hold the Bible ; it is the Bible that holds 
me. Any other statement of the case, or any softening 
of it, to save my pride, is — a delusion. 

Of Avhat sort, then, is the reply which I gather from 
my Bible to what must be my foremost question, as it 
is my chief anxiety ? How is it as to the reality of the 
moral system? How is it as to the truth of the univer- 
sal instincts of mankind concerning good and evil, praise 
and blame, reward and punishment ? How is it con- 
cerning my prospect of well-being or of ruin in a future 
life ? These questions, or any others virtually contained 
in these, are soon answered. 

Holy Scripture, from its first pages to its last, is a 
spreading forth of the rudiments of the moral economy. 
The reality, and the unalterable permanence, and the 
inexorable force of whatsoever has a moral meaning — 
this is the import of all things therein contained, 
whether it be history, or formal teaching. Whatever 
I read in direct propositions, and whatever I gather by 
inference, has this same meaning. And there is a con- 
secutive accordance of innumerable affirmations of the 
same truth. 

Book after book, page after page, verse after verse, 
assumes as certain the reality of whatever is of a moral 
quality. Ordinarily this is assumed, and on a few occa- 
sions it is declared in form ; but never is it argued as if 
it were questionable, or as if it had ever been questioned : 
never is it excused ; never is an apology offered in be- 
half of what it may imply. Nowhere do I find any 
covert indications given me of a path of abstract thought 
in following which I may — if by constitution of mind I 



WITJIOUT CONTROVERSY. 265 



uc'oil it — work out tlio problems of the moral universe 
for myself. 

Instead of this, I am met at the outset by the fact that, 
the one oriental family, to which, at the first, were " com- 
mitted the oracles of God," was, throup^hout the period 
of its national religious existence, conscious only of the 
concrete forms of thought, and was wholly unconscious 
of its abstract or philosophic forms. This " election" 
doubtless had its psychological significance ; and wdien 
I look into PiiiLO I see a curious instance of that tortur- 
ing of the national intellect wdiich could not but take 
j^lace when the Jew aspired to think and write as the 
Greek. 

Throughout the Scriptures the First Truth in theo- 
logy is conveyed in terms of the moral system ; and 
very rarely in any other terms ; nor ever in those of 
abstract thought. It might have been allowable, forty 
years ago, on the part of hopeful intellectualists, to 
iiiingine that a scientific theology would, at length, be 
educed, and set forth in propositions of a purely theo- 
retic order. But no one can now entertain this hope 
who has followed the course of what is called metaphy- 
sics, throughout that period, and up to this present 
time. The result of the earnest endeavours of the 
choicest minds of Germany, France, and England, is this 
— to demonstrate the fact that a religious revelation of 
the IxFixiTE and Absolute Being is not possible in 
any other mode than that which is emi)loyed by the in- 
spired writers — the earlier of them, and the later. 

And not only have these writers given to the world 
the only possible revelation of the Divine Nature, but 
they have, at their first essay, reached the highest pos- 
sible expression of it. Tliat it is so there is at hand a 



256 ESSAY VII. 

very significant proof. Vast — prodigiously voluminous, 
is that amount of commentative labour of which the 
Jewish and Christian Scriptures have been the text. In 
attempting to compass, in thought, this body of exposi- 
tory industry — evoked in the course of more than two 
thousand years — the mind is quite overwhelmed and 
lost. That portion of this perennial toil which may now 
be extant upon our shelves, is nothing more than a frag- 
mentary samj^le of the entire mass ; for besides this 
specimen, treasured in books, extant^ there is the greater 
mass, once consigned, to books, but long since gone down 
to the abyss. Yet even if all were now before us which 
the pen had for a while conserved, we should need to 
add the far larger quantity — and much of it not less 
worthy of preservation, which has uttered itself within 
halls and churches, from week to week, throughout this 
great extent of time, but w hich has not outlived its own 
echoes. Thus has the human mind exhausted itself in 
the ever-to-be-renew^ed labour of spreading out to view 
tlie utmost meaning of Scripture — Scripture as the ex- 
pression of what man may know, or conceive of, con- 
cerning God. 

What, then, is the upshot ? Has the original revela- 
tion become an obsolete rudiment, giving place to what 
all must now accept as an improved expression of the 
same elementary principles ? Nothing of this sort has 
taken place ; but instead of it, there has been, from time 
to time, an emphatic return to the purely Biblical ex- 
pression of the highest truths, after each ephemeral en- 
terprise, to give to these truths what was thought to be a 
more exalted, or a more refined expression of them, has 
had its season. If it were not beside my purpose, I 
should find it easy to bring forward as many as seven 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 257 



distiiictly-iiiarked and well-recorded endeavours of this 
sort, which have flared up for a while, and presently 
have gone out : and now, at this time, the decisive ten- 
dency of the best-trained minds is to return, with a zest, 
as if impelled equally by religious feeling, and by cor- 
rect and cultured taste — to what ? — to the Biblical ex- 
l)ression of the highest truths in theology. 

It must not be pretended that this adhesion of all 
minds to the Bible, and to its style, is the mere conse- 
quence of an opinion of its sacredness and authority. It 
is not so. Xothing is more certain in human affairs than 
this, that a better, or a more fully-developed form of 
what is substantially true, displaces, or supersedes, the 
more ancient or crude form of the same truths. In the 
long run, that which is antiquated and imperfect gives 
place to that upon which the men of a later time have 
laboured to good purpose. Tried by the test which this 
fiK't supplies, I return to my proposition — That the Bible 
writers have given to the world, not merely the only 
pos^ble revelation of the Divine Xature, but have given 
us this revelation in its most mature form, and in that 
condition which we must continue to receive; or if not, 
must reject, not only revelation altogether, but theo- 
logy also. 

So much of the knowledge of God as I may be capa- 
ble of admitting, I therefore look for in my Bible ; and 
I cease to look for it from any other quarter — I mean 
from any conceivable future achievements of the human 
mind. The Scrij^tures thus accepted, become to me the 
source of religious truths, or, as we say, doctrines and 
preceptive principles of all kinds. These principles and 
doctrines I am compelled to think and speak of cUstri- 
butively^ or according to an artificial order or method ; 



258 ESSAY VII. 

yet while doing so, I well understand that doctrines and 
precepts, the several articles of a creed, and the several 
rules of conduct, are not many items, but one Divine 
element, diversely uttei'ed, to suit the limitations of 
reason, and the changing occasions of Hfe. 

Thus, hy 7iecessity, we think of the Divine Attributes, 
and, in doing so, stumble upon perplexities which, though 
they are unreal, are not to be evaded. Just at this 
point a knowledge of abstract science, or intellectual 
philosophy, may be serviceable ; for it may enable me 
to set myself clear of each special perplexity ^ by finding 
that it resolves itself into the one master problem of the 
relation of the finite to the Infinite. If the problem 
which stands foremost in philosophic thought were 
solved, none of the included problems would thencefor- 
ward give us any trouble : thus, therefore, I may remove 
from the roadway of the religious life difiiculties which 
belong to another path, namely, the path of ultimate 
abstractions. 

On this ground, therefore, I accept from Scripture 
what I first need, while in search of a place of rest ; — 
namely, a confirmation of the instinctive belief in the 
reality of the moral system, and of my relationship 
thereto, and of whatever consequences, however for- 
midable, which this relationship may bring with it. 
Thus far it is not rest ; but disquiet that attends me. 



SECTION V. 

Let it be that criticism has taken its course upon the 
text of Scripture without restriction., and free from 
intimidation ; but in the exercise of this liberty it must 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 259 

not arrogate what can never belong to it, nor assunie a 
right to stand between me and the product of my Bible- 
reading at large. There must be — a detinite result, 
thence to be derived: — there must be a raain intention 
in the Scriptures: — along with many things that are 
incidental, there must be that which is princi})al, that 
which is of the highest moment — that for the sake of 
v.hich, and to teach it, the Bible has been given me; 
and which I shall not fail to find there, unless by grievous 
fault or negligence, on my own part. 

At this point I wish, beyond mistake, to feel that I 
have a sure path. If the various writings making up 
the Biblical Canon were miscellaneous summaries of 
religious sentiment, and of didactic ethics — tlien, and 
in that case, they would not have needed the attestation 
of miracles : the supernatural accompaniment would 
have encumbered, more than it could recommend, such 
a revelation. But I do find tliis accompaniment, and 
therefore I look for that which must need it, and which 
I could not accept with an assured belief of its Divine 
reality, unless it were so attested. 

In seeking, then, for that which I may receive as 
indeed the principal intention of Scripture, and as the 
final cause of its miraculous accompaniment, I take for 
my guidance two rules, the first of which is this — That 
as this revelation offers itself to me as a good — a boon — 
a conveyance of inestimable benefits — a gratuity, not 
merited or claimable by me, it must undoubtedly have 
been given in all sincerity ; and it must suppose a corre- 
spondent ingenuousness and uprightness on my part, 
who am to be the recipient of so free a gift. That reve- 
rent regard with which I may seem to listen to a mes- 
sage from Heaven is little better than a disguised im- 



260 ESSAY VII. 

piety, unless it springs from a full confidence in the 
good faith of Him who speaks. As to the perj^lexities 
that have troubled me in my religious course, most of 
them have arisen from an unconscious distrust, or want 
of confidence in the good faith of Him who speaks. If 
questioned on this point, I should have repelled the im- 
putation — " Do you indeed mistrust the Most High ?" — 
No: how can you impute to me such folly, and such 
impiety? So I might retort; and I may believe that 
the imputation is groundless. Nevertheless the suspi- 
cion which I disown in formal terms, creeps upon me 
when I am not thinking of it. 

Those especially who have lived among books, and 
who, as a habit of their intellectual life, have been used 
to put themselves into the position of an opponent, so 
as to give the fullest weight to a contrary opinion — such 
persons find it difficult to read their Bible in undiverted 
remembrance of what it is, namely — a Divine Message. 
And yet I take it as such at the moment when I assent 
to its supernatural attestations. This proper recollec- 
tion, therefore, is the reason of my first rule, in the 
reading of Scripture — That, as it is given me for my 
benefit, it must be given in all sincerity by Him whose 
air I breathe, and who sends me, daily, my daily bread. 
It is clear that unless I am warranted in reading my 
Bible with this feeling of a pure religious ingenuousness, 
a written revelation can be of no service to me : other- 
wise read, it must keep me for ever on the rack of donbt 
and uncertainty: far better be rid of it altogether. 
This therefore is my determination, namely — To seek 
the Principal Intextion of Scripture, in a perfect 
confidence that it has been icorded in good faith. 

The second rule, available in the reading of Scripture, 



AVITIIOUT CONTROVERSY. 261 

and wliich is no loss certain in my view than tlie first, is 
this — Tliat the insi)ired books will not teach, or in any 
way suggest, a sense that shall be directly at variance 
with the most conspicuous purport, or foremost axiom 
of the whole revelation. 

This rule, certain as it is, might easily be misapplied. 
It does not mean this — That my individual reason, or 
that human reason at large, should assume the right to 
accept, or to reject, what is affirmed in Scripture, be- 
cause it is conformable, or not conformable, to its pre- 
vious conclusions. Nor does this rule mean, that I 
should resist any Biblical doctrhie on account of its 
apparent contrariety to other Biblical doctrines. The 
first of these errors is that of the rationalist; the second 
is that of the dogmatist ; — and both errors spring from 
a similar misapprehension as to the powers, and the 
range of the human mind, in relation to religious prin- 
ciples. 

The rule means this — That the Scriptures Avill not, 
whether on the very same page, or on pages remote 
from each other, bring the primary sentiments of the 
religious life into a position of irreconcileable conflict, 
so as that no other release from distraction of mind can 
be found, except that of a state of indifference, or reli- 
gious unconsciousness. The instance is near at hand. 
I have no choice but this: — I must either attribute to 
certain conspicuous, and often-cited passages in the 
Gospels and Epistles their 2yl<initude of meaning^ in con- 
formity with the laws of language, and the admitted 
principles of textual criticism ; or if I refuse to do this, 
then I must seek an assuagement of the most distracting 
perplexities in the stupefaction of the religious emotions, 
and in courtinix whatever diversions I can find in a 



262 ESSAY VII. 



sensuous, or a frivolous life, or in a cold intellectualism. 
Is it not so ? The Bible— the Old Testament, and the 
New — is a continuous and stern condemnation of the 
ancient error of the nations in their polytheism ; and it 
is a rebuke of that inveterate perversity whicli transfers 
to a created power— seen or unseen— that regard, and 
that trustful confidence, which is due to the One, the 
Supreme Being. To err on this ground is perdition : 
to be rent by ambiguous influences, or counter-motives, 
is wretchedness ; —or it is so unless I seek relief in in- 
difierence. But the import of the evangelic, and of the 
apostolic writings is to this effect— that the highest 
religious regard, and a full and trustful confidence, are 
due to Him, personally, who is therein set forth as the 
Deliverer of men— the Chkist— the Saviour of the 
world. 

It would be most difficult— it would be impossible— 
for me to maintain, in my thoughts and feelings, a dis- 
tinction, setting off the latria from the hyperdulia, on 
this ground, even if I were aided in attempting it by 
any apostolic explanations, and were impelled to do it 
by solemn and reiterated cautions. But there are no 
such aids given me— there is not one such :— there are 
no such cautions appended to passages which seem to 
demand them:— there is not one such. There is no 
phrase which elsewhere in Scripture is appropriated to 
the highest religious uses, that does not find a place also 
among those exhortations, the intention of which is to 
fix the thoughts upon the power and grace of the Sa- 
viour Christ. Instead of a caution, where it should 
come, if it ought to come at all, what I find is emphasis 
— intensity — accumulation of epithets ;— the purpose of 
all being such as can find its reason in nothing— shoit 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 263 

of the uncoiulitioned meaning of those passages which 
bring the Person — the Christ, into view, as tlie object 
of worship — even of the highest worship of which the 
human si>irit is capable. 

That it should be so is indeed — o/xoXo^oujm-s'vwj — a "great 
mystery." How does it transcend all faculties of human 
thought to grasp it, or to find its solution, or to bring it 
within the compass of any known analogies! Never- 
theless it is the mystery, and it is the condition of the 
only possible religious existence. Clearly it is so, for 
the uniform testimony of experience, within the Chris- 
tian community, is to establish the law that every at- 
tempted abatement of this belief, whether by theologic 
speculation, or by the application of exceptive criticism 
to single passages, takes effect upon the religious life — 
to lower it, to render it ambiguous, and perplexed, and 
feeble, and to induce a temper that is captious, and fas- 
tidious, and distrustful. The product of such attempts 
has, in every instance, been a religion, the characteristic 
of which is the irreligiousness of its tone, and of its 
language. 

An instructed Christian man, when he accepts, as in- 
deed true, that which the apostolic writers plainly affirm 
concerning the Person of Christ, will not fail to look 
back through the course of time, and inquire in what 
manner this same Biblical testimony has taken effect 
upon religious minds, from the first years of Christian 
Iiistory, to these last years. It is not in distrust of the 
Scriptures that I may wish to make this inquiry ; it is 
more in distrust of myself, and it is as ])rompted by a 
proper diffidence that, when a truth so transcendant is 
put in my view, I should seek to know how it has been 
regarded by those who, in long series, have gone before 



264 ESSAY VII. 

me. I profess to believe in "the holy Catholic Church," 
and "the communion of saints:" — I believe, therefore, 
that Christianity has realized itself, from age to age, in 
the mind and affections of a great company of men, 
variously trained, and variously minded in all things ; 
but yet of one mind as to their acceptance of whatever 
may be the principal meaning of the Scriptures. 

Thus thinking, I look back and find that the orthodox 
faith, concerning the Person of Christ, has sustained 
itself in its controversy with each successive denial of it, 
by a direct appeal to the apostolic writings, on this prin- 
ciple, that Scripture has been worded in good faith, and 
that our part is to read it with a corresponding inge- 
nuousness. On the other hand, those who have laboured 
to establish an abated, or a contrary belief, have been 
thrown upon the resources of their individual skill and 
ingenuity; and although these might seem to avail them 
in single instances, it could only be by destroying our 
confidence in the good faith, or the intelligence of the 
Apostolic writers. In reviewing the history of the 
controversy concerning this — "the great mystery of 
godliness" — from the ante-Nicene age to this, the same 
characteristics of evasiveness and of subtile ingenuity 
attach to the side of (what is conventionally called) 
heresy ; and yet with this difference, that whereas the 
early opponents of orthodoxy, when compelled to shift 
their ground, still betook themselves to positions withhi 
the pale of Biblical authority — their successors, in later 
times, have receded, from point to point, more and more 
remote from that authority. At the present moment 
those who maintain orthodoxy, do so in maintaining also 
the integrity and the simplicity of the Scriptures : — those 
who assail and rtject what they designate as — a " dry 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 265 

Athanasianism," in doing so, disallow the Apostolic 
commission to teach men, as with authority from 
Heaven. 

At this time I should scarcely find an ingenuous oi^po- 
nent who would not allow that the question of orthodoxy 
has resolved itself into the previous question concerning 
tlie Evangelic and Apostolic writings as determinative 
m religious controversy. Xo voice is now heard in court 
as representative of those who, in times gone by, have 
pleaded for an intermediate belief concerning the Person 
of Christ. All argumentation of this order has long ago 
gone to wreck ;— there is therefore, on the one side— 
this orthodox belief— and on the other side— what is it? 
If in candour and sincerity I ask myself what there is— 
I can find no answer which saves the authority of the 
Scriptures, or which distinguishes them in any sense from 
otiier records of human opinion. Christianity, as a reve- 
lation—means nothing, if it does not mean the faith 
which has been professed in aU times by the great body 
of Christian men. 



SECmON VI. 

As is the recipient, such must be the product of any 
teaching. Especially does this condition take effect 
when truths that are as much beyond the grasp of the 
most capacious minds, as of the meanest, are symbolized 
m words, and condensed in propositions. The difference 
will be this, that what is so embodied carries a meaning 
to the one mind which moves it to its depths; while to 
another mind the same form of words is nothing more 
than what the car admits— "a fomi of words"— a dead 

12 



266 ESSAY VII. 

letter, or a letter that killeth — a word that deadens even 
what might have seemed to be alive. 

"A dry and wordy Trinitarianism" is, in fact, a creed 
which, by some accident of a man's position, has come 
to lodge itself in a "dry and wordy spirit:" the aridity, 
the stiffness, the wordiness, are all in the soul ; they are 
neither in the propositions, nor in the things spoken of. 
If the orthodoxy which I profess is to me a barren for- 
mula, I ought to know that the very same state of the 
feelings which forbids my receiving light, and life, and 
comfort, from my confession of faith, sheds darkness also, 
and discomfort, upon every element of the religious life. 
Yet there is something more than mere lifelessness, 
which intervenes between me and a cordial acceptance 
of what should next follow in constituting a Christian 
belief; for there is a repugnance, the existence of which, 
whether it be latent or avowed, will not fail to betray 
itself 

I believe in "the forgiveness of sins." Yes, assuredly; 
I must do so ; for we are all in fault ; and I too am so, 
no doubt : — I do not profess to be better than others ; 
but if I am to accept pardon, I ought to know the con- 
ditions ; and I should take time to consider the terms of 
peace: I should stipulate on the ground of my just pre- 
tensions. Few of us would choose to put feeUngs of this 
sort into words ; and yet there are few who could truth- 
fully declare that no such feelings had ever found a 
lurking-place in their hearts. A consciousness of such 
risings of nature might suffice, even without the citation 
of texts, as proof that man is indeed " far gone from 
original righteousness;" and that the whisperings of a 
disturbed conscience prevail to hide from him the humi- 
liating reality of his own moral condition. If I take up 



WITHOUT CONTItOVEKSV. 267 



iu turn the j>eveial pleas, many as tliey are, wliicli, i.i all 
time, have been urged as conclusive objections to the 
Biblical doctrine of the i)ardon of sin : — each of them 
has its source plainly in those dehisions of self-love, 
which, while acknowledging an obligation to the require- 
ments of impartial justice, insist upon terms, as if there 
were a counter plea which ought to be listened to. 

But now, if I put far from me, and reject, and refuse, 
every such suggestion of pride, and if, in a mood which 
undoubtedly must be proi)er to me, I take up the Scrip- 
tures, assured as I am that there is therein conveyed a 
message of grace— icorded in good faith— \i so, then a 
question cannot arise as to the import of the many pas- 
sages that bear on this ])rincii)al subject. Xo shadow 
of doubt attaches to that often-recurrent affirmation con- 
cerning the purpose of the death of Christ— suffering 

as suffering to save, when lie " made His soul an offer- 
ing for sin." Ah-eudy I have accepted from the insi)ired 
writers their ineffable doctrine concerning the Person 
of Christ; but this doctrine finds its complementary 
truth in that which I now accept as also the Jiieaning of 
the same writers, concerning the purpose of His death. 
The first truth demands the second, nor can it find its 
interpretation in the teaching merely, or iu the Divine 
example of virtue and wisdom; nor otherwise is it to be 
understood than as it is related to His vicarious death 
U}»on the Cross. It is here, and it is at no point short 
of it, that the troubled human spirit finds rest. It is at 
this point, where the speculative reason consciously 
meets a limit it can never i)ass — it is here that the medi- 
tative mind — the awakened moral consciousness, acknow- 
ledges its home. Here the soul may abide :— here may 
man tranquilly, if not joyfully, await the final issues of 



268 ESSAY VII, 

the future life. Here, without dismay, is it possible for 
the kindling immortal spirit to look on to the dread mo- 
ment of its summons into the Divine Presence. 

I revert to what I have just before said of the Biblical 
mode of conveying to the human mind so much as may be 
conveyed concerning the Divine Nature. This teaching 
is most often in terms of the moral economy ; — never is 
it attempted in those of abstract thought, or of philo- 
sophy. The inspired writers, in giving expression to 
human conceptions of the Natural Attributes (so we 
speak !) of God — His creative power and wisdom. His 
omniscience, and omnipresence, and the like, do so in 
phrases that are manifestly tropical, and such, that, in fact, 
they are never misunderstood, unless by infants, or by 
adults, infantile in mind. I thus read — " The eye of the 
Lord is in everyplace, beholding the evil and the good." 
But is this mode of teaching theology a condescension — 
is it an accommodation, having in view the benefit of the 
unphilosophic multitude? This may have been ima- 
gined, and though not giving words to so supercilious a 
feeling, I might have thought that — if a Bible, or if a 
supplementary theologic treatise had been granted, /br 
me, and for a few others, of my class — men trained in 
abstractions — in that case, we, enjoying a hook to our- 
selves^ and flattered by the gift, should have found the 
elements of theology conveyed in terms familiar to our 
habits of thought, and less rude than are those of the 
Scriptures at large. No such upper-class treatise as this 
— no such book for the privileged intellectualist, is in- 
cluded in the canon : it is not there ; nor could it in the 
nature of things have been provided for me ; for there 
is no mundane dialect which could have been made the 
medium of it : there are none, born of women, who 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 269 

could liavc worded it ; there is no college of philoso- 
phers competent to any such task as that of framing a 
theology in abstract terms of the finite reason. I take 
my Bible in hand therefore, not as if it were a book 
which, being graciously intended for the unlearned mul- 
titude, I may be willing to read condescendingly : — not 
so, for the Bible gives expression to the knowledge of 
the Infinite Being, in that mode which is demanded 
by the universal limitations of the human mind. Let 
me not practise any fond illusion upon myself in this 
matter. And undoubtedly it is better for me, as for 
others, that the conveyance of the first truths in theology 
should be made in those terms that are manifestly tro- 
2)ical^ aiid which I must know at once to be allusive and 
analogical, than that it should be given in terms that 
would seem to have been carefully and artfully con- 
cocted, but which, by their very avoidance of trojDes and 
figures, would seduce me into the notion that I was 
receiving from them a direct knowledge of the Infinite 
and the Absolute Being. In so reading a hyper- 
wrought theology, I should be led away upon a path of 
positive and dangerous error. In reading the Scrip- 
tures such as they are, the Infinite and Supreme is 
symbolized to me in a mode which, while it secures the 
religious end intended, suggests no error of a specula- 
tive kind. As for instance : — it is good and needful for 
me to be told, by authority, that " the eyes of the Lord 
are in every place, beholding the evil and the good." 
But now let me go to work, and attempt to put this 
truth concerning the Divine Omniscience into the most 
approved form of philosophical expression ; let me con- 
dense it, and let me expand it, and let me fence it off 
from its contraries, on every side. I shall not have 



270 



ESSAY VII. 



finished my task until I have gone deep into that rayless 
abyss in the midst of which a true theology, and a 
ghastly atheism look so much alike, that I am in dan- 
ger, every moment, of mistaking the one for the other. 
Again, it is highly serviceable to me— in truth, it is a 
necessary condition of the religious life— that I should 
have a firm belief in the efficacy of prayer, and in the 
reality of that Providential Government of all things, 
which is the complementary Biblical doctrine, involved 
in the belief that prayer is efficacious. The two beliefs, 
while they spring up irresistibly in the human mind, are 
assumed as certain on every page of the inspired writ- 
ings. Innumerable passages give expression to these 
two elements of piety. But in every instance they are 
conveyed in the terms of the finite, both as to the sup- 
pliant recipient of favours, and not less so, as to the 
Hearer of prayer, and the Giver of good things. I 
ought, with especial care, to keep in view this fact at 
this time, inasmuch as a nugatory philosophy has gone 
so far to entangle these religious elements with abstrac- 
tions wherewith they have no inner connection— no con- 
nection at all. 

This, then, is the ground on which I accept, from the 
inspired writers, what they teach concerning the death 
of Christ— dying as the Saviour of the world. I find it 
is not in figures of one kind only that the meaning of 
Scripture on this momentous subject is expressed fbut 
in figures derived from three or four sources. Whatever 
there may be in the transactions of our social existence 
which may be made convertible to the purpose of teach- 
ing so transcendant a doctrine as that which it so much 
concerns us to learn, is, either by Christ Himself, or by 
His inspired servants, so made available for this purpose. 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 271 



When I examine tliis symbolic pliraseoloixy in detail, 
it becomes evident that there is not one of these tropical 
terms which I can imagine to be, by itself, adequate to 
the occasion on which it is employed. If it were indeed 
ade(piate to its subject, theie would be no room for 
other terms, or symbols ; l)ut there are several others ; 
and each must find its i)lace in the teaching to which I 
am to listen. 

But what is the treatment which I should give to 
these symbols? Am I at liberty to say — These are 
figures, they are metaphors, in the oriental style, and as 
such, if I am in search of their exact import, they must 
be shorn of much of their apparent value. The very 
contrary of this should, as I think, be the rule of inter- 
pretation in the case. Oriental writers do indeed in- 
dulge themselves in the use of extravagant similes when 
they are fi-aming adulations for the ear of potentates ; 
but this is not the style of the Biblical writers; and 
when they are teacliiug theology in terms and phrases 
pi-oper to the finite mind, which are the only terms 
available,, or, indeed,/>05szWe, they accumulate such figu- 
rative terms as substitutes for tenns of the Infinite. 
Thus, in teaching what they teach concerning the Divine 
Power — they say of the Most High, such things as these : 
That He taketh up the isles, as a very little thing ; that 
M'ith Him, the mountains are only as the small dust of the 
balance ; that He stays the raging of the sea, and says 
to its proud Avaves — Thus far shall ye go, and no further. 
They say of God — That He spreadeth forth the heavens 
as a tent to dwell in ; and that as a garment, some time 
hence. He shall roll them together. These figures, 
ought they then to icceive a retrenched interpretation ? 
Ought they to be denuded of their oriental garb? Not 



so, for if I am willing to take up David's genuine theo- 
logy, and to read it off in the light of my modern as- 
tronomy, then I shall find that these symbols— true and 
sublime as they are, demand now, an interpretation 
which immeasurably surpasses what was included in the 
largest conceptions of the Hebrew king ; these meta- 
phors are cumulative terms of the finite, employed for 
teaching me truths, concerning the Infinite, which 
could neither be taught, nor learned, in any other man- 
ner, whether by me, or by tlie loftiest and the largest of 
human minds. Nay, if on this arduous ground I might 
allow myself to speculate at all, I should incline to be- 
lieve that, in an upper world, and in the schools where 
immortal intellects receive their training, the theology 
current among them is, from its beginning to its end, 
delivered in tropes and figures, which are known and' 
acknowledged to be such: the difference between the 
teaching on Earth, and the teaching in Heaven, being 
this— that whereas we, in the dark, are for ever beating 
about among our abstractions, and are vainly labouring 
to stretch them out to the dimensions of the InBnite, 
they in Heaven have long ago come to understand that 
all such endeavours are a folly. The abstractions of the 
finite reason become delusive fictions when they are put 
forward as applicable to the Infinite: whereas the 
figures and (as they might be called) the fictions of a 
symbolic style are lights on the highway of eternal truth, 
when we take them for what they are— our only guides 
on that road. 

Let me now apply these maxims of Biblical interpreta- 
tion—I venture so to think of them— to the BibHcal 
style in teaching me all I can learn in this world, and 
perhaps in another, concerning what is technically called 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 273 

the doctrine of the Atonement. Take one instance out 
of many. Christ, as teaclier of a new moraUty, or of 
a morality newly illustrated by His own practice, is 
spreading out to view that self-renunciation of which 
His coming into the A\orld was the brightest example. 
He says — "Even as the Son of Man came hito the world, 
not to be the receiver of services, but that He might 
Himself render services to others." Thus far the terms 
are. literal, and they are such as manifestly exhaust the 
subject to which they are applied ; for the words find a 
full interpretation within the circle of the duties and 
offices of common life.. But then there is an appended 
clause : — the teaching, in relation to the immediate occa- 
sion, was completed at the semicolon ; yet it receives a 
supplement ; it is as if, when the purpose of Christ's 
coming into the world were brought within the field of 
vision, it was not possible'to stop short in the mention 
of what was only an adjunctive purpose — the giving an 
example of self-denying beneficence ; not so, for tliis 
Teacher of men came principally as their Deliverer ; and 
in this capacity He came " to give His soul a redemption- 
price for the many." Now the terms of this appended 
clause are not intelligible in a literal sense : manifestly 
they are tropical: — they lead outioanl^ beyond that 
home-circle within which the terms of the first clause 
complete their intention. There was nothing which 
met the eye of those who were spectators of the Cruci- 
fixion, that could correspond with the terms of this 
subjoined clause : a sense more remote — a sense occult 
is to be inquired for. There is a transaction, the j)arties 
concerned in which do not make their appearance on 
this stage : the principals are not here visibly present. 
Christ's death, as a martyrdom^ was a visible event ; and 
12^ 



274 ESSAY VII. 

those of the bystanders who were capable of learning 
the lesson, might learn the Avhole of it as they stood. 

It is, then, as if in these eight words — xa/ Sovvctt Tr,v 
■^v)(Yjv aurou X'jrpov avW "ttoXXwv — a momentary uplifting 
of the veil of the great world were taking place : and 
in this moment (begmi and passed in the twinkhng of 
an eye) there had stood in view the long line of the 
captive human race : — the Tyrant — enemy of God and 
man — with the chain in his hand : — the laying down of 
a price which he would, but which he dares not refuse: — 
then the dropping of that chain from his reluctant grasp, 
and — the release of uncounted millions ! 

All this is figure ; but it is figure which has its inten- 
tion, and which touches more nearly the truth of the 
things in prospect than any form of words could do 
which, discarding metaphor, should aim to be literal and 
exact. In changing its terms, and in seeking aid from 
other sources among the things of earth, the Biblical 
style keeps steadily in view its single purpose, namely, 
to suggest a behef concerning the death of Christ which 
shall quite exclude the notion (otherwise probable) that 
the crucifixion was a martyrdom merely. It would be 
safe to seek for instances in the Apostolic writings ; but 
those occurring in the Gospels may be regarded as 
having a peculiar emphasis. 

" The Good Shepherd giveth His life for the sheep" — 
He layeth down His soul for them. Metaphor again, 
and it is indeed a brief utterance ; but yet the terms, 
few as they are, open up, as before, the unseen world ; 
and the same persons, and their conflict, are dimly 
revealed ; and the centre fact is the same — the cruci- 
fixion ; and the price offered to the Tyrant is the same ; 
for it is the soul of the Deliverer that is the price of the 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 275 

redemption of the captives. And the metaphor is siu-li 
as to prechide all risk of its being interpreted in a lite r:il 
sense. And it is because the doctrine, and the facts, 
which are thus symbolized, so immeasurably transcend 
the powers of human language to express them, and so 
tar transcend the range of human thought to grasp 
them, that both the doctrine, and the facts, are every- 
where consisined to iiojures, and to such lis^ures as could 
not, except as perverted by the superstition of a dark 
age, have received a literal interpretation. Understood 
as a system of figures, Christ's teaching, on various 
occasions, constitutes a uniform doctrine concerning the 
one purpose of His death. Even those variations in 
the wording of His last utterance at the Supper, as 
reported by the three Evangelists, may well be under- 
stood to convey a further precaution, intended to guard 
against the dangerous mistake of interpreting literally 
that which so far exceeds any power of words. It is 
evident that, in the conveyance of what should be 
understood in a literal sense, on a subject like this — 
namely, the purpose of the death of Christ, there could 
have been only one form of words by which so momen- 
tous a doctrine could be certainly made known. But 
^Jiguratlre conveyance of it may admit of many varia- 
tions without damage to the meaning; inasmuch as, at 
the best, such language can be taken for nothing more 
than an a])proximate expression of an ineffable truth. 

Throughout the Apostolic writings every utterance 
bearing upon the same subject is concentric with Christ's 
own words, when His death, and the manner of it, and 
its purpose, are in His view. This purpose I can no 
more misunderstand than I can misunderstand those 
many passages occurring in the Psalms, and the Pro- 



276 ESSAY VII, 

phets, which symbolize the power, the providence, the 
wisdom, the omniscience, and the compassion of God. 
The terms are various, the metaphors are drawn from 
every available source ; but the final intention is put 
beyond the reach of mistake, unless when a perverted 
reason resolves to take to itself the false, and to cast 
away the true. 

More than three or four passages in the Apostolic 
Epistles might suggest an inquiry concerning the pur- 
pose of the Saviour's descent into Hades — the Sheol — 
the prison of spirits. But that which more concerns 
me is — the triumphant return of the Deliverer from 
that prison-house. It is not among shadows, obscurely 
spoken of, that I am left to seek the assurance of safety 
which I need, when on the border of the world unknown. 
A firm assurance of the forgiveness of sins, and of every 
other benefit which now in this life, and in the future 
life, is embraced in the Christian scheme, is brought to 
rest upon a fact concerning which I may possess myself, 
if I need it^ of incontestible historic evidence, namely — 
the Resurrection of Christ. Yet are those to be ac- 
counted happy whose personal consciousness of their 
individual membership in Christ carries them clear of 
any such necessity ! To feel this necessity is a penalty 
that must be paid by the educated, as the price of their 
prerogatives. 

SECTION VII. 

The Resurrection of Christ — a principal event, it 
must be, in the history of the human family ; and as 
this event is cognizable through the medium of those 
ordinary evidences which put us into corresj^ondenco 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 277 

with history at large, it might well claim the place due 
to it as at once the instance, and the proof, of a destiny 
so much higher than mortality could otherwise aspire 
to. Thought of in this way, this event might seem 
itself to pass over from the region of theology, and to 
attach itself to the pliilosophy of human nature. But 
no such transference as this can, in fact, be allowed ; for 
the Resurrection of Christ has another, and a higher 
intention than that of enlarging our conceptions of the 
destiny of the human species : it is the governing event 
in an economy which is purely spiritual ; and it will 
Avithdraw and withhold our thoughts from whatever 
belongs to a lower order of ideas. 

Wliat is it then that I intend by this phrase — a phrase 
so vaguely employed often — the spiritual economy? It 
is that recovery, and it is that discipline of human souls 
individually^ which is the leading subject of Christ's 
last discourse with His disciples before His hour of 
suffering. He there speaks to them of the advent of the 
Comforter, the Spirit of Truth, who should "abide 
with them for ever," and should " teach them all things" 
— in a word, should open up anew the communion of 
man with God, and bring it to rest upon a new founda- 
tion. This spiritual economy is not declarative, nor is 
it universal, like that of the moral system, which em- 
braces all beings that are rational and accountable ; but 
it is a dispensation that is strictly individual, and the 
benelits of which are imparted in a sovereign manner, 
wherever they are bestowed at all. It is a dispensation 
of grace connected always with the life, the death, the 
resurrection, and the mediation of Christ, as theSaviour 
of them that, throughout all time, shall hear His voice 
and fallow Him. 



278 ESSAY VII. 

If, while this present life is running out, I am seeking 
assurance, and if I need a steadfast hope as to the 
future life, neither of these blessings can ever be 
attained on the field of discursive and unauthentic medi- 
tation ; for that field, on every side of it, borders upon 
an abyss — dark and unknown. Hope, and peace, and 
assurance, must come to me from above, and they must 
so come as that I may be able, at all times, to connect 
them with that which is well-defined, and is warranted, 
and is appro vable to reason and conscience. That 
Divine Energy to which I am taught to attribute what- 
ever, in a genuine sense, is good within me, c'onforms 
itself to the terms of the written Revelation which is in 
my hand. The spiritual life is a discipline, and an exer- 
cise, and a commencement, every rudiment of which, and 
every possible condition of it, has already been noted, 
and put into terms, and set forth in instances, within 
the compass of the inspired writings. Apart from this 
verbal and this definite guidance, and fi'om this authen- 
tic teaching, I may conjecture anything, and imagine 
what I please ; and after making excursions, to the right 
and the left, far into the illimitable gloom, I shall 
return to question all things, to doubt everything, and 
to sicken of all. There could be no rest, on this 
ground — ground it is not, but a region of dreams, 
wherein the human mind has never attained to what it 
needs — peace in prospect of the future. 

Within the compass of the inspired writings I find 
that which meets and satisfies the wants of the soul in its 
yearning to hold communion with God — the Father of 
spirits, and to be assured of His favour. In the Gos- 
pels and Epistles I am fully instructed as to the terms 
of this communion ; but it is in the devotional portions 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 279 



of the Old Testament, and there only, that I find the 
expression of it. I need both ; and it is a eircunistanee 
full of meaning that, whereas in the New Testament the 
eondiiions of peaee between man and God are set forth 
with the utmost explicitness, little or nothing is added 
in them, either in the Gospels or the Epistles, as a pattern 
or exomplirication, or as the formuUie of this newly-opened 
communion. In the New Testament there is history, 
and there is doctrine, and precept; but there is no 
spiritual liturgy ; there are no models at large of evan- 
gelic meditation; there is no new recen.sion of the 
worship of the ancient Church : as well the public 
})rayer and praise, as the solitary wrestlings of the soul 
witli God, which served the faithful in the earliest 
times, the same must serve us also in these last times. 

What should be the inference from this noticeable 
fact? It is this, that as to the communion of thelnunan 
spirit with the Father of spirits, it had already received 
its character and style, and it had attained its highest 
expression, and it had reached its most mature form in 
the Psalms, and in the theologic and devotional pas- 
sages of the Prophets. It is thus, in fact, that the 
devout in all ages have taken up, and have employed 
tliese sublime ])assages, and these odes, and these medi- 
tations. But then these ancient formulae of devotion — 
these model expressions of the throes of the sj)iritual 
life, were given to the pious among the Hebrew people 
while they were still uninformed, explicitly, concerning 
the future life. Tliis fact imports much. Thinking 
just now only of the devotional Psalms, and of some 
passages in the Prophets, it is to be noted that these 
voices of the soul, moved to its depths, and giving 
emphatic utterance to its yearning for the enduring 



280 ESSAY VII. 

favour, and fruition of the presence of God, are drawn 
forth by nothing more momentous than the changeful 
experiences of the ordinary lot of man — man whose 
days are so few — man, in his brief time of frailty and 
sinfulness — man in his passing hour of sickness and 
destitution — his hour of faintness and thirst in the 
wilderness, when pursued by the cruel, and betrayed 
by the false, and cast down by troubles that shall see 
their end at sun-rise, and chilled by a cloud that is even 
now moving off from the heavens ! It is as thus disci- 
plined among the things of this short day of life, that 
the soul is brought into correspondence with the 
Infinite, the Eternal, whose favour shall be endless. 

Here then is a result that is vastly out of proportion 
with the occasions whence it is educed. Here is a disci- 
pline, looking on to a remote futurity, which futurity has 
barely been announced ! Here is a training for an endless 
life ; but the endless life itself is, at the best, dimly fore- 
shadowed only. The trial begins and ends in a day — a 
year, or a threescore years and ten ; and the learners in 
this school are spending their days of vanity or pain as a 
tale that is told; and while they are thus chastened 
every morning, and sore troubled every evening, 
they are learning those lessons of immortal wisdom 
which bespeak a destiny whereof nothing more than an 
ambiguous whisper has come, once and again upon the 
ear. Here then, in considering the conditions under 
which souls were trained, of old, I learn Avhat it con- 
cerns me to understand, as to the Divine Method, 
always the same, for the spiritual discipline of. the 
human spirit. 

Now — and under the conditions of the Christian sys- 
tem — ^just as it was under the ancient system — the soul 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 281 



is wrouglit upon intensely, and it is profoundly moved 
by the things of the hour and of the day ; from which 
transient interests it would fain, but cannot do so, disen- 
gage itself Why not treat, as they deserve, these 
trials of the moment — come and gone, Avhile we smart 
under the lash ? Why not contemn these cares and 
pains? How wise were it to contemn them! We 
think we will do so to-morrow ; but to-morrow shall see 
our stoical resolves shattered, and we in school once 
again. But in this school of to-day I am learning les- 
sons which, so fa)' as cq^pears, I shall have no occasion 
to put in practice when the time comes that I have 
thoroughly well learned them. 

So it was with the long series of those to whom the 
Scriptures of the Old Testament were given : — they 
were in training for a life hereafter, which life had not 
been so revealed to them as that the hope of it should 
distinctly utter itself in their religious language, either 
of solitary meditation, or of discourse, one with another. 
And thus it is now, even under the brighter liglit of the 
Christian revelation : the Divine Method is substantially 
the same. Although the announcement of immortality 
is now distinct, and the conditions of its attainment are 
set forth in the clearest manner, yet little more is given 
than some dim indications of what that life eternal is to 
be, in preparation for which the discipline of the pre- 
sent life is — what we find it to be. The arduous ser- 
vices, and the trials of principle, and the bold enter- 
'prises of that future cycle of aeons shall be such — how 
can it be supposed otherwise — they shall be such as 
shall exliibit, and shall justify the wisdom that has 
ordered the training which fills the years and days of 
this present life. 



282 ES.SAY VII. 

That I should well learn the lesson of this life, but 
that while learning it I should not know its meaning — 
this is the purpose of Him who appoints it ; therefore, it 
is upon the learning of this lesson that my best thoughts 
should be concentred, and I ought to be content to 
look on, seeing in front of me the thick folds of a veil 
that is never lifted. And yet this veil, impenetrable as 
it is, is it not figured with symbols on this side? 
Certainly it is so ; nor need there be hesitation in 
attempting to decipher these hieroglyphics, for what- 
ever is spread out before the eye of man is doubtless 
intended for his perusal. But ought it not to be 
believed that, at this time, if not ages ago, the entire 
sense of Scripture has been laid open ? What can there 
now remain, in these days of Bible exploration, to be 
brought up from the depths ? An answer to this ques- 
tion, intended to check presumption, I find at hand, 
first in this fact, which obtrudes itself in reviewing the 
course of religious thought through the lapse of centu- 
ries — that what have been the allowed limits of thought 
in one age, have not been its limits in another : these 
limits, in fact, are found to be variable, from time to 
time: the subjects of religious inquiry are in a course 
of shifting from one period to another. The indiffer- 
ence, and the inobservance of this present time, on 
some subjects, may thus be brought into comparison 
with the vivid intelligence, and the active curiosity of 
times long gone by, and now almost forgotten. The 
individual reader of the Bible ought indeed to be cautious 
when he is tempted to set his single opinion in opposi- 
tion to the mind and judgment of the Church universal ; 
but he need not be troubled with diffidence when he 
puts small value upon the opinion of the time now pfiss- 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 283 



ing, if it stands opposed, as it may, to the opinion of 
times passed. 

But again, a reply to the above-named repressive 
query may be found in noticing tliat inattention to the 
meaning of certain signal passages in tlie Old Testa- 
ment, and in tlie New, which prevails at this time — 
whether it be the pulpit, or the press, that is thought 
of. In public and in private — in the family and in 
Chuich — the Bible is read — by the chapter: — it is doled 
out in lumps : it is recited, and it is heard, as if it had 
long ago spent its force ; it is insisted upon with emphasis 
at i)oints only : it is disregarded throughout those flat 
])laces upon which no intensity of the present moment 
happens to fall. 

Moreover, in what relates to tlie future destiny of the 
human family at large, there are other influences which 
come in to intercept the course of a free interpretation 
of the inspired wiitings. We hear it said — "Do not 
open up such and such subjects : — you Mill unsettle the 
minds of people." Meantime Christianity itself is 
weighted down in the secret musings of thousands of 
tlioughtful persons. But beyond this, the incubus of 
systematic Theology sits heavily upon religious thought, 
and stifles Biblical inquiry. Such and such beliefs — 
phiinly as they may stand out upon the surface of the 
Scriptures — how shall they be reconciled to our other 
beliefs, which are equally certain, or more so ? What 
will become of our doctrinal forms? — nay, how shall we 
save the credit of our theological synthesis ? — how — 
unless we pass over in silence those things which this 
synthesis will never avail to bring into their place in our 
divinity scheme. Besides, if you admit into your reli- 
gious system this and that, you surrender our contro- 



284 ESSAY VII. 

versial stronghold :— you open a way, and the enemy 
will come in ! 

Allowance should be made for these fears, groundless 
as they are; for it can be no wonder if even men of in- 
telligence give way to alarms at a time Avhen a lawless 
and arrogant scepticism has made deep inroads upon the 
Christian convictions of multitudes, as well among the 
educated, as among the uneducated. It may seem the 
duty of w^ise and discreet instructors to throw their 
whole weight on to the conservative side, in religious 
opinion. But there are moments when nothing is so 
perilous as a blindfolded persistence in conservatism. 
We know it is so in politics, and is it not so in religion 
also? 

Conservatism in the seniors passes into some form of 
worldly discretion, or of sheer indifference, or of tacit 
infidelity, when it is taken up by their sons and succes- 
sors. The transmutation is a silent process — no one 
speaks of it ; no one denounces it ; but it is in the course 
of this very process that Christianity subsides into its 
periodic condition of powerless formalism. Thus it has 
been — how many times — in the course of eighteen hun- 
dred years ? It cannot be told how often this cycle 
has been run through ; but this may be affirmed, that, 
at whatever point of Christian history we make our en- 
trance upon the scene, the rise and the fall — the time 
of power, and the season of slumber, are just then tak- 
ing their turn. False religions slumber for centuries, 
when once they have spent their primeval forces ; but 
the Christian force suffers abatement for short seasons 
only ; — itself lives, it awakes, it walks forth : — it has 
renewed its youth, and it gathers souls anew. 

So it shall be yet again : national events may come in 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 285 

to give an impulse to the minds of men : — there may 
come a season of suffering perhai)s ; but the new life of 
a period of restoration takes its rise in the spirits and 
hearts of a few — a two, or three. So it has always 
been. Greater than any '' tendency of events" is the mind 
of this and of that man — born, and taught, and moved 
onward from above. But although the movement be 
individual, and thus must defy human forethought, yet 
does it stand related to the things of the time, when it 
occurs. It is on tins ground, therefore, that.the charac- 
teristics of the next coming Christian renovation might 
be predicted ; and thus one might presume. to predict 
for the Church of the next age a reaction from the form- 
alism of this. 

There is an outer-work that must precede an inner 
Christian movement. There must be a clear ground of 
reason on which the convictions of the few Avho think must 
be made to rest. In the coming time those many forms of 
anti-Christian opinion which have flared up in these last 
times shall have collapsed, or have fallen in upon that 
one mode of thought which alone is logically possible 
on the side of disbelief. Even now those who have 
followed the course of thought on that side from year 
to year will be ready to acknowledge that there is no 
holding — there is no ledge for the foot — anywhere 
upon the slope toward material atheism, or that extreme 
creed which satisfies a sensuous and sensual fleshlincss. 
As to any scheme of pantheism which hitherto has 
been imagined — it is a figured gauze — stretched over 
the mouth of the bottomless pit. 

The basement work, in preparation for a season of 
Christian renovation, must be carried yet some Avay fur- 
ther. In a remarkal>le manner the course of inquiry of 



286 ESSAY VII. 

late years has tendered to the clearing up of antiquity 
on all sides — to the certification of history, at all points, 
and to the consequent verification of those methods 
of argumentation, by means of which a solid road 
athwart the gloom of ages has been formed, and is 
safely trodden. The issue shall be a realizing confidence 
in the truth of the Evangelic Records — simply thought 
of as history. This renovation is now greatly needed. 
The myth-whims, and the cobwebs of German "pro- 
found thought" are an amazement to English minds that 
have made acquaintance with the realities of the Apos- 
tolic period, and these fancies will be gone as mists, at 
the dawn of the next day-time of religious feeling. 

The basement work in preparation for such a time 
must include also some reforms in halls of philosojDhy. 
Accomplished and well-intending men will come at 
length to acknowledge the impassable limits, and the im- 
potency of abstract thought, as related both to the 
unknown, and to the Infinite in theology. Such men 
will sicken of the infructuous toil of attempting to 
teach Christianity philosophically, or of teaching atheis- 
tic philosophy, Christianly. What is it that has come, 
hitherto, of these misdirected endeavours? They have 
not given us either a Christian metaphysics, or an intel^ 
ligible anti-Christian metaphysics. Christian belief is 
expressible in Biblical style, and not in any other style ; 
yet this is not because there is not, in the upper 
heavens, a philosophy proper to it ; but because, for 
conveying its axioms, no dialect on earth has any 
terms. 

Nugatory disbeliefs wound oif, and done with ! nuga- 
tory Chi-istianized philosophies spun out, and done 
with ! Biblical criticism become religious, because ad- 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 287 



initted without jealousy : — Holy Scripture become 
resplendent; or, as one might say, incandescent, 
throughout, and taking effect upon all minds — and then 
it need not be thought a chimerical supposition that the 
Divine intention of the inspired writings should be 
accepted on all sides, and that (let church organizations 
be as many as we please) Christian doctrine should be 
received in its integrity, humbly, cordially, everywhere, 
and " without controversy," by all ! 

In this Essay I have endeavoured to set forth — step 
by step, a course of thought, in following which a posi- 
tion of religious rest, or of a tranquil, if not joyful look- 
ing forward into the unknown future may be attained. 
A position much in advance of this point of rest is no 
doubt attainable; and the simple-hearted Christian man, 
whose life and temper are in accordance with Christian 
precepts, may assuredly reach it without presumption. 
If at this time I am stopping sliort of this further and 
warrantable stage in the Christian life, it is on this 
account — namely, that I am supposing the case of those 
— and there are more than a few such — whose habits of 
thought may be of a kind that debars them from any 
such tranquil enjoyment of a cloudless faith. It is the 
enviable ha])piness of some — of many — to have read their 
Bible from their youth u|), and to have read little else. 
But 1 am now tlnnking of those who — often and ol'ten, 
ha\e trod the round of meditation, and who, after 
deriving from Christianity itself exalted conceptions of 
the Divine Attributes, have imbibed from it also a sen- 
sitiveness which is incompatible with that tone of enjoy- 
ment which gives ajiimation to the piety of- some 
around them. Let it be granted that there is a fault — 
and it may be a serious fault— on the part of any Mho 



2^8 ESSAY VII. 

thus come short of this animation, and who, when 
challenged to be glad, and to lift up the head, find it 
difficult to disengage themselves from meditations that 
come on as a cloud, from remoter sources, and which 
settle down upon their prospect. The sensitiveness and 
the disquietude which I am here speaking of are recent 
developments of the Christian consciousness ; and they 
are of that sort which attends deep changes in modes of 
thinking that have not reached their end or purpose : 
no doubt they shall reach that end, if not now, yet in the 
times of our successors. 

In looking back upon any period we please in centu- 
ries past, there are to be seen Christian men — many or 
few— doing honour to their profession as laborious and 
self-denying benefactors— the dispensers of benefits, 
bodily and spiritual .-—wherever want, and pain, and 
woe were abounding, men have been at hand who have 
learned from Christ the first lesson of His new law of 
love. All was right thus far ; nevertheless one may be 
amazed to find, along with this active Christian element 
— the absence of that meditative sensibility which, in 
these times, so deeply moves many minds, in relation 
to the human family at large. 

Christian charity, in these times, seems as if it would 
reverse the order of beneficence, as ^iven us in the 
Apostolic precept—" Doing good to all men— specially 
to them that are of the household of faith ;" for now it 
is as if we read it—" Specially to them that are not of 
that household." Doubtless there is a deep meaning in 
this revulsion of feeling ; and we may take it as a silent 
preparation for a new and amazing development of the 
powers of the Gospel to restore all things. At this 
time it is not only the present condition, but the desti- 



WITHOUT CONTROVERSY. 289 



nies of the unblessed, the unprivileged, the lost, the visi- 
bly non-t'lect of the thousands near ns, and afar off, who 
are dwelling in the outer darkness of hopelessness, as to 
this life and the future — it is these, and their wretched- 
ness, that fix the thoughts of the meditative few Avho 
muse and spend their days in sadness. Meantime the 
enterprising and the better-minded are up, and are 
busied in all practicable schemes of reformation. Con- 
cerning such schemes, if wisely ordered, there can be 
no controversy ; for how thick soev'er may be the dark- 
ness into w^hich we have lately learned to look, it must 
be well to carry into it a lamp ; and whatever may be 
the miseries of the pit, it must be a good work to carry 
help to our fe!low-men there that have never had a bet- 
ter home ! 

On this path, as on every other, the blessed Book 
which has been given us from above holds toward us 
the same method : — it solves no problems — it satisfies 
no impatience, it gives no ]»hilosophy of pain and of 
sin :— it abstains even from affording a gleam of light — 
off the narrow w^ay which the individual Christian man 
is to tread. None of these things do the inspired Avri- 
ters do for us ; but yet that narrow way is well defined, 
and as to the mystery of the evil and the suffering of 
which lately we have learned to think so much, we must 
seek no solution of it, or ask — IIow is it so? — Why 
should it be so ? — What will be the end ? There is no 
response ! Heaven will not be inquired of by us as to 
any such matters. 

Let it be so ; for the work before us is free from a 
shadow of doubt. As to our troubled thoughts — an 
anguish as they are to some — this disquiet may be the 
prognostic of a time coming when the power of the 

13 



290 ESSAY VII. 

Gospel to bless the human family shall be so amply- 
developed as shall at once overpass all controversy 
within the Christian pale, and put to silence for ever all 
gainsaying from without. 



SUPPLEMENT Al I Y TO THE FIFTH ESSAY. 

A DiSTixcTiox wliich should always be kept in view 
has not been duly presented in the Essay — " Tiieodosius : 
— Pagan Usages, and the Christian Magistrate." What 
we should intend by these " Pagan Usages" with which 
the " Christian 3fagistrate''' may have to do, are not the 
immoralities of men individually — abounding, as they 
do, everywhere, and which it is the office of the minis- 
ter of religion to rebuke, and which he must aim to re- 
move by persuasions addressed to the consciences of 
men singly : — these ai'e not what we mean ; for with these 
— as sins — it is not the office of the magistrate to con- 
cern himself. Pagan usages (we are thinking of such as 
are immoral) are national customs, and legalized prac- 
tices, and institutions which, being of ancient date in a 
country, are recognized as alloioahle^ or are cherished as 
good; at least they are subjected to no general reproba- 
tion ; but perhaps they are gloried in, and are upheld by 
the public arm, and are endowed by the public funds. 

Now as to such usages — such institutions, and such 
legalized crimes — abominable as they may be — this is to 
be noticed concerning them — and never should it be for- 
gotten — that Christianity abstains from naming, or 
denouncing, or prohibiting them : — it is silent because 
it takes quite another course in ridding the world of 
them : it doa at length rid the world of them : but this 
happy issue it brings about in its own manner. It be- 
comes us to understand what this method is — for, if we 



2^2 SUPPLEMENT TO ESSAY V. 

mistake it, we shall be likely to fall into the impious 
practice of pleading the silence of the Gospel in behalf 
of the worst abominations. 

When a crime of any sort has passed into its fixed 
form as an institution — when a sin has come to stand 
upon the fair side of a people's statute-books — when the 
Devil has been called in to prepare the rough draft of a 
liberal enactment, then — we shall look in vain for texts 
in which such crimes of a state are denounced, or are 
even named. The Gospel, as it addresses no offer of sal- 
vation to nations, so does it preserve an ominous silence 
concerning their sins. 

But this boding silence — is it approval ? none will 
think so but those whose reason is fist going — where 
their conscience has long ago gone — to ruin. What 
then are these Pagan usages ? What are these 
NATIONAL INSTITUTIONS which Christianity does not 
name, and does not denounce, but of which, at length, 
it rids every country where it gains the ascendancy ? 
They are these nine following : — I. Polygamy. II. In- 
fanticide. III. Legalized Prostitution. TV. Capricious 
Divorce. Y. Sanguinary and grossly immoral Games. 
VI. Infliction of Death or Punishment by Torture. YII. 
Wars of Rapacity. VIII. Caste ; and, IX. Slavery. 

Each of these immoralities was practised, and was 
more or less distinctly existing as a social Institution — 
a usage — of the neighbouring nations in the time of 
Christ's ministry. In fact, each of them had then a 
place even in Palestine, so far as that it must often 
have come before Him ; — and was an immorality per- 
petrated under His eye. Yet one only of the nine on 
this list did He name, and denounce — that is the fourth : 
and the reason of the preference given to it we might 



SUPPLEMENT TO ESSAY V. 298 

easily find. But were the eiglit approved ? It is mad- 
ness to think so — it were blasphemy to say it! With 
each of these non-mentioned immoral usages Christian- 
ity, in its progress among the nations, came into conflict 
at an early time; and then, in its o^m manner^ by 
enlightening the individual conscience, it either abro- 
gated them entirely, or it greatly mitigated the evil of 
each of them. Some of those usages disappeared 
silently, very soon after the moment of the imperial con- 
version : others fell from their place as applauded cus- 
toms, and quietly subsided into a position of tolerated 
evils — condenmed, yet winked at. Each of them, 
among modern nations, vanishes wherever Christianity 
prevails, and is free to speak its mind. To this aver- 
ment there is not — there never has been — an exceptive 
instance. Certainly the worst of the nine — Slavery — 
is not an exception : how could it be so, for it includes, 
and it gives its eager support to, at least, seven of these 
enormities out of the nine : — it does so as thus — Sla- 
very has had its commencement in the most atrocious 
of all the forms of aggressive and lawless war: slavery 
perpetuates the most odious of the distinctions of caste : 
— slavery enforces its initial wrong by giving a brutal 
licence to punishment by torture. And as to that cir- 
cle of crimes which are the attendants of slavery, in 
vitiating the relation of the sexes — slavery is the soul 
of each of those abominations with which the brutal 
lust and the demon-like cruelty of man have ever 
blighted what God has blessed. Slavery does indeed 
exist in countries where Christianity is blasphemously 
professed ; — but in no country does shivery maintain 
itself in which the Gos})el takes effect upon the con- 
sciences of men. 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH* 

Isaac Taylor was the son of the lute Rev. Isaac 
Taylor, a dissenting minister at Ongar, in Essex, and 
brother of Jane Taylor, whose " Contributions of Q. Q." 
are well known. He was born about the close of the last 
century, and, we believe, educated privately under the 
immediate superintendence of his father. He was ori- 
ginally destined for the dissenting pulpit, and com- 
menced a course of preparatory study; but he soon 
relinquished the idea of becoming a minister, and turned 
his thoughts to the bar. His connexion with the legal 
profession was not of long duration. He betook him- 
self to literature, and for many years lived in retirement 
at Stanford Rivers — a beautiful rural retreat in the 
immediate vicinity of his native place. In this secluded 
spot he wrote and published anonymously "The Natu- 
ral History of Enthusiasm," and other works, some of 
which have had a fair share of popular favour, more 
especially among the enlightened and thoughtful of the 
various dissenting communities. His other principal 
works are "Ancient Christianity," published periodi- 
cally, and manifesting an intimate acquaintance with the 
writings of the early fathers — an attempt to meet the 
Tractarians on their own ground, and to prove that 
some of these ancient writers were not so immaculate, 
either in doctrine or morals, as to entitle them to the 
blind adherence claimed for them by their modern eulo- 

* From " Men of tl)e Time." Kent & Co. London. 1859. 



296 BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 

gists — " Elements of Thought," a small treatise which 
is used as a sort of vade mecmn by students entering 
upon their philosophical studies in dissenting colleges — 
" The Physical Theory of Another Life," in which he 
indulges in speculations respecting the material condi- 
tion of man and other created beings in a future state. 
The mental characteristics displayed in this and his 
other works gave rise to a highly amusing and inte- 
resting article from the pen of Sir James Stephen, in 
the "Edinburgh Review." Mr. Taylor, however, was 
comparatively little appreciated as a writer until it 
became known that he was the author of "The Natural 
History of Enthusiasm." He had been for some time 
before the public in propria persona^ but failed to elicit 
that attention to his writings which their intrinsic 
merits deserved. His circuitous style and Coleridgean 
manner of viewing the various subjects on which he 
wrote proved a great barrier to his popularity. His 
classical learning, his philosophical acuteness, and his 
general culture, were never called in question ; but the 
laboured obscurity of style, and his indefinite mode of 
expression, proved substantial obstacles to his literary 
fame. "The Natural History of Enthusiasm," how- 
ever, was very differently received by the religious 
public. It was fortunate in the time of its appearance. 
It was issued when the excitement and enthusiasm con- 
nected with Row and Irving were at their height. Mr. 
Taylor's philosophico-religlous turn of mind, his pre- 
vious studies, and even his peculiarities of style, enabled 
him to treat this subject in a manner agreeable to all 
professors of religion, of whatever sect or denomination. 
Young men j^reparing for the ministry began to imitate 
the idiosyncrasies of its style, and some with greater 



BIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 297 

success to imbibe its ansectarian spirit. His other works 
on kindred subjects, " Fanaticism,'' " Spiritual Despot- 
ism," " Loyola and Jesuitism," " Wesley and Method- 
ism ;" the series of sacred meditations entitled " Satur- 
day Evening," and " Home P]ducation ;" have all been 
well received, although their popularity has been by no 
means equal to that Avhich "The Natural History of 
Enthusiasm " has all along maintahied. In addition to 
his gifts as an author, Mr. Taylor possesses a certain 
amount of mechanical genius, which, we believe, he has 
turned to some profitable account in originating various 
designs of a useful and ornamental character. It may 
not be uninteresting to add that his habits are simple 
and methodical ; although a " recluse," as he somewhere 
in his writings styles himself, he is said to be an expert 
and eager angler, and fond of healthy and manly sports. 
He spends his Saturday mornings in directing the games 
of his children, while his Saturday evenings are devoted 
to meditations of a religious character, similar to those 
which appear in the Avork under that name ; and on 
Sundays he occasionally preaches, although a layman, to 
the great delight of those who are fortunate enough to 
hear him. His books have all, or nearly all, been 
republished in America, and have had an extensive 
circulation in the States as well as in Canada. 



13* 



A CATALOGUE 



OF THE 



WRITINGS OF ISAAC TAYLOR. 



Ancient Christ kuiity^ 

And the Doctrines of the Oxford Tracts for the Times. Fourth 
Edition, with Supplement, Index, and Tables. 2 vols. %\o., pp. 
550 and 700. London, 1844- 

Aneient Christianity^ 

And the Doctrines of the Oxford Tracts for the Times. Supple- 
ment, including Index, Tables, <fec. 8vo., pp. 142. London, 1844 

SpiritucLl Desjyotism, 

Second Edition. 8vo., pp. 604. London, 1835. 

Fanaticism, svo. 

Natural History of Enthusiasm. 

Eighth Edition. Svo. London. 

Saturday Evening, 

Sixth Edition. Svo. London. 12mo., pp. 379. 

Home Education. 

Crown Svo. London, 1838. 

Physical Theory of Another Life. svo. 
Four Lectures on Spiritual Christianity^ 

Delivered in the Hanover-Square Rooms, London, March, 1841. 
r2mo., pp. 203. London, 1841. 



Writings of Isaac Taylor, 
Elements of Thought ; 

Or, Concise Explanations, Alphabetically Arranged, of the Prin- 
cipal Terms Employed in the Different Branches of Intellectual 
Philosophy. Seventh Edition. 12mo. London, 

An Essay ^ 

Introductory to a N"ew Edition of Pascal's Thoughts. 12aio. 

Transmission of Ancient Boolcs 

To Modern Times. 8vo. 

Essay 

On the Application of Abstract Reasoning in the Christian Doc- 
trine. Originally published as an Introduction to Edwards on 
the Will. 12mo., pp. 163. Boston, 1832. 

Wesley an Methodist ; 

A Review, published in the Edinburgh Review, 

Introductory Essay 

To a Translation of Pfizer's Life of Luther. 

Loyola and Jesuitism 

In its Rudiments. 12mo., pp. 416. London, 1860. 

Process of Historical Proof svo. 
Balance of Oriminality^ 

Or Mental Error. 12mo. 

Jane Taylor'^s WorJcs. 

A New Edition. With a Life and Notes. 5 vols. 12mo. 

Wesley and Methodism, 
Josephus^ Tlie Worhs of 

A New Translation, by the Rev. Robert Traill, with Notes, Ex- 
planatory Essays, and Pictorial Illustrations. Edited by Isaae 
Taylor. Royal 8vo. London, 1847. 



Writings of Isaac Taylor, 



Bes'toration of Belief, 

The Restoration of Belief. 12nio., pp. 381. Cambridge, 1855. 

World of Mind, 

The World of Mind, an Elementary Book. 12mo. London, 1858. 

Logic of TJieology. 

Logic of Theology and other Essays. 12mo., pp. 384. London 
1859. 

Ultimate Civilization, 

Ultimate Civilization, and other Essays. By Isaac Taylor 
London, 1860. 



li 



CATALOGUE OF BOOKS 



rUHLISHKI) IJY 



avilliaj\[ go wans 



SHAKIiNrKAUK. 



W'Uh-iiit l—iln (;<in i» lilrnl, jiistire iliTmai t natural science at a ttan<i, pfillimif/ii/ 
t, tttUn dumh, ami <tU tltint/M inmived in Cimmtrian darktuM." Bautholi.v. 




Nos. 81, 83, AND 85 CENTRE STREET. 



L. 



NEW YORK: 
186 0. 



CATALOGUE 



WILLIAM GOWANS' PUBLICATIONS. 



Plato 6- Phcedoii ; 

Or, a Discussion on the Immortality of the Soul. Translated 
from the Greek by Charles S. Stanford. A new edition, enriched 
wiih Arciibishop Fenelon's Life of Plato ; the Opinions of ancient, 
medieval, and modern philosophers and divines, on the Soul's 
Immortality ; together with Notes, liistorieal, biographical, and 
mythological. To which is added a Catalogue of all the work* 
known to have been written on a Future State. With a beau- 
tiful and accurate portrait of Plato. 12mo. pp. 309. Price 
11.00. 1854, 

Ancient Fragments, 

Namely: — Tlie Morals of Confucius, the Chinese Philosopher j 
The Oracles of Zoroaster, the founder of the Persian Magi ; San- 
choniatho's Theology of the Phoenicians; The Periplus of Ilanno, 
the Carthaginian Navigator and Discoverer; King Hiempsal' 
History of the African Settlements; The Choice Sayings of Pub- 
liu9 Syrus; The Egyptian Fragments of Manetho; The Simili- 
tudes of Demophilus, or Directions for the Proper Regulation of 
Life; and The Excellent Sayings of the Seven Wise Men of 
Greece, Translated into English by various authors. I'imo 
pp. 298 ^2.00. 1835 



A Catalogue of 
Denton^ Daniel, 

A Description of New York, formerly called New Netherlandsj 
with the places thereunto adjoining. Likewise a Brief Relation 
of the Customs of the Indians there. By Daniel Denton. A 
new edition, with an Introduction and copious Historical Notes, 
by Gabriel Furman. 8vo. pp, 74. $1.00. 1845. 

The Same Worh 

liarge Paper. 4to. Only 100 were printed. $3.00. 1845. 

Cupper^ H. A. 

Th'i Universal Stair Builder: being a new Treatise on the Con 
struction of Staircases and Hand-rails, showing plans of the va- 
rious forms of stairs, method of placing the risers in the cylin- 
ders, general method of describing the face-moulds for a hand-rail, 
and an expeditious method of squaring the rail. Useful, also, 
to stone-masons, constructing stone stairs and hand-rails; with 
a new method of sawing the twist part of any hand-rail square 
from the face of the plank, and to a parallel width. Also, a 
new method of forming the casings of the rail by a gauge. Pre- 
ceded by some necessary Problems on Practical Geometry, with 
the sections of Prismatic Solids. Illustrated by 29 Plates. 4to. 
pp. 30. $6.00. 

*♦* By competent judges this book is accounted the best that has, as yet, ap- 
peared on the subject of Stair Building. 

Colton^ O. C. — Lacon ; 

Or, Many Things in Few Words, addressed to These Who Think. 
By the Rev. C. C. Colton. Revised edition, with an Index, 
and Life of Colton. 8vo. i)p. 504. $2.00. 1849. 

2^he Same Worh, 

In one vol. 12mo. pp. 504. $1.25. 1849, 

Allyn^ Avery. 

A Ritual of Freemasonry, illustrated by thirty engravings. To 
which is added, a Key to the Phi Beta Kappa, the Orange, and 
Odd Fellows' Societies. With Notes and Remarks. By Avert 
Allyn. 12mo. pp. 269. $5.00. 1831 



William Gowana'' l\iblicatioiis. 
Jachin and Boaz ; 

Or, an Aiitliontio Key to the Door o{ Frettnawnrii, both Ancient 
aiul M(nlt'i-n, ealcuhitod not. only for the Instruetion of every 
Kew-Made Mason, but also for the Information of all who intend 
to becon)e Brelhrt-n. Interspersed with a variety of !Notes anil 
Remarks, necessary to exjilain and render the whole eloar to the 
meanest capacity; also, a New and Accurate List of all th.J 
English Regular Lodges in the World, according to their Seni- 
ority, with the dates of each Constitution, and Days of Meeting; 
to which is added, Maaonry DUaected, by Samuel Priciiaud, and 
The Freemason's "Winepress, consisting of Toasts, Sentinients, ana 
Auccclotes ; and a Catalogue of Books ou Freenjasonr\-, and Kin- 
dred Subjects. l!>mo. pp. 200. $2.50. New York, 1857. 

Gowans^ I Villiam . 

A Catalogue of Books on Freemasonry and Kindrea Subjects. 
Compiled by W. 0. 12mo. pp. 50. $L25. New York, 1858. 

•' Book Catalogues are to men of letters what the compass and the lighthouse 
are to the mariner, the railroad to the merchant, the telegraph wires to the editor, 
the diges^ted iixlex to tlie lawyer, the pharmacopceia and the dispensatory to the 
physician, the sign-post to the traveller, the screw, the wedge, and the lever to the 
luelicanic; in short, they are the labor-saving machines, the concordance of litera- 
ture." — Wtftern J/emorubilia. 

Ilfuii-satj^ Allan. The Gentle Slieplierd : 

A Pastoral Comedy, in Five Acts. To which is added the Life 
of the Author, an authentic Portrait, Criticisms on the PUiy by 
various eminent writers, a new and carefully compile<l Glossary, 
and a Catalogue of all the Scottish Poets. 12mo. $1.00. 1852. 

The Same Woi'h. 

Large paper, with Portrait on India paper. 8vo. Only 100 
copies printed. $3.50. ISoi 

The Same Worh 

E.\tra large papt-r. witli Portrait on India paper. 4to. O'dy 
50 copies printed. $r..OO. 1852. 

The Same Worh. 

Cheap edition, without the introductory >bitter, Portrait, .md 
Catalogue. 37^ cents. 



A Catalogue of 
Coleridge^ S. T. 

I'iugrapliia Litei-aiia ; or, Biograpljical Sketches of ]\Iy Litem rj 
Life and Opinions. From the Second London Edition. Pi-e- 
pared for publication in part by II, N. Coleridge. 2 vols, tliick 
12mo. pp. 804. $1.50. 18o2. 

Tlte Same Worh. 

Large paper. Bvo. pp. 804. $3.00. 1852. 

California. 

Tiic Wonder of the Age. A book for every one going to or hav- 
ing an interest in that Golden Region; being the Report of 
TuoM.vs BuTLKR KiNG, United States' Government Agent in and 
for California. 8vo. pp. 84. 12^ cents. 1850. 

liocliefoucaidd^ Due de la. 

Moral Reflections, Sentences, and Maxims. Newly translated 
from the French ; with an Introduction and copious Notes, and a 
Life of the Author. With an Elegant steel Portrait. To which 
is added the Moral Sentences and Maxims of the ^ooc? Stanislaus, 
King of Poland. Also a Catalogue of all the Books written on 
Proverbs, Maxims, Sayings, Sentences, Apophthegms, Simili- 
tudes, etc., etc. 12mo. pp.237. $1.25. 1851. 

The Same Worh. 

Large paper, with the Portrait on India paper. 8vo. pp. 237. 
Only 100 copies were printed. $2.50. 1851. 

The Same Worh. 

Extra large paper, with the Portrait on India paper. 4to. pp. 
237. Only 25 copies were printed. $0.00. 1851. 

Taylor., Isaac. 

Physical Theory of Another Life. To which is added a Cata- 
logue of all the autlior's writings, and a Catalogue of all the 
books published on the Immortality of the Soul. 12mo. pp. 
278. $1.00. 1852, 



William Goioans' P 
Tmjloi\ Isaac. 

Elements of Thouglit; or. Concise Explanations {nlphahcllcalhj 
arranrjed); or, The I'lincipal Terms Employed in the Intellectual 
rhilosophy, Tinm. pp. 180. 75 cents. 1851. 

Fahe}\ Rev. George Stanle^j^ B. D. 

Difficulties of Infidelity. To which is added, Modern Infidelit}' 
Considered by Robert Hall, and a Catiilogue of all the books 
that have been published on the Evidence of Revealed Religion, 
also, a list of Mr. Fabek's published writings. Vlmo. pp. 3uO. 
doth. $1.00. 1853. 

O'Meara^ Barry E.^Esq. 

Napoleon in Exile ; or, a Voice from St. Helena. Being the Re- 
flections and Opinions of Napoleon, on the most Memorable and 
Important Events of his Life and Government In his own 
words. With Engravings. 2 vols. 12mo. pp. 540 and 552. 
cloth. $2.00. 1853. 

The Same Worlc. 

Royal 8vo. 2 vols. pp. 540 and 552. 83.00. 1853. 

"A work professing to give minute details of the private life, and especially 
the unreserved coJiversation of the most re.markablk personage who has ap- 
peared in modern times, must possess the very highest claims to attention. * * • 
Mr. O'Meara very naturally kept a journal of what passed between himself and 
his illustrious patient, and the work before us consists of this journal." 

Kingshury.^ Harmon. 

The Great Law Book. The Kingdom and Reign of the Messiah, 
his Subjects, Precepts, and Government. With Preliminary Re- 
marks on the Bible, its Author, Dispensations, and other King- 
doms. 12mo. pp. 312. To cents. 1857. 

Gowan-s^ William. 

His Book Catalogues, from 1 to 18, both inclusive. Royal 8vo. 
eloth. $2.00. New York, 1842-59 



A C italogae of 
CarlUe^ Richard, 

A Manual of the Three Fu'st Degrees of Masonry. "With an In- 
troductory Key-Stone to tlie Royal Arch. 12mo. pp. about 
350. $2.50. 18G0. 

Whately^ ArclMshop. 

A General View of the Rise, Progress, and Corruptions of Cliris- 
tianity. With a Sketch of the Life of the Author and a Catalogue 
of his Writings. 12mo. pp. 288. $1.25. 1860. 

Taylor^ Isaac. 

Logic in Theology and other Essays. With a Sketch of the 
Author's Life and a Catalogue of his Writings. 12mo. pp. 300. 
$1.25. 1860. 

Moon Hoax, 

The Moon Hoax; or, a Discovery that the Moon has a Vast 
Population of Human Beings. By Richard Adams Locke. 
Illustrated with a View of the Moon as seen by Lord Rosse'a 
Telescope, and an Appendix showing how the Moon is known 
at the present time. 8vo. pp. 63. 50 cents. 1859. 

Wooley^ Clw.rles, 

Journal of a Two Years' Residence in the City of New York 
(1679-80), and part of its Territories in America. A New 
Edition, with an Introduction and Copious Historical Notes. By 
E. B. 0'Callagh.\n, M.D. Bvo. pp. 97. $2.00. 186U 

Tlte Same Work 

Large paper, 4to. Only 50 printed. $5.00. 1860. 



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